Pre-Columbian Peru
Peruvian territory was inhabited 14,000 years ago by hunters and gatherers. Subsequent developments include the appearance of sedentary communities that developed agriculture and irrigation, and the emergence of complex socio-political hierarchies that created sophisticated civilizations, technology and monumental construction. Andean cultural formations. These cultures developed advanced techniques of cultivation, gold and silver work, pottery, metallurgy and weaving. Some of the social structures that later (around the 12th century) formed the base of the Inca Empire may be traced back to these previous periods. Archaeological findings. Archaeologists led by Gabriel Prieto revealed the largest mass child sacrifice  with more than 140 children skeleton and 200 Llamas dating to the Chimú culture after he was informed about some children had found bones in a dune nearby Prieto’s fieldwork in 2011. According to the researchers' notes in the study, there was cut marks on the sterna, or breastbones some of the children and the llamas. Children’s faces were smeared with a red pigment during the ceremony before their chests had been cut open, most likely to remove their hearts.Remains showed that these kids came from different regions and when the children and llamas were sacrificed, the  area was drenched with water. “We have to remember that the Chimú had a very different world view than Westerners today. They also had very different concepts about death and the role each person plays in the cosmos, perhaps the victims went willingly as messengers to their gods, or perhaps Chimú society believed this was the only way to save more people from destruction” said anthropologists  Ryan Williams.