---
node: sa_archaic
type: period
slug: archaic_period_south_america
title: "Archaic period"
lead: "The Archaic period (c. 8000–1800 BC) followed the Ice Age, as South American peoples settled into a broad foraging life and began farming. In the central Andes it saw the domestication of the potato, quinoa, and the llama, and the first monumental civilization, Norte Chico."
published: 2026-07-13
updated: 2026-07-13
image_file: archaic_period_south_america.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinchorro_mummy,_south_coast_of_Peru_or_north_coast_of_Chile,_5000-2000_BC_-_San_Diego_Museum_of_Man_-_DSC06921.JPG"
image_author: "Daderot"
image_license: "CC0"
---

## Overview

Across the continent, Archaic peoples fished the rich Pacific coast, hunted and gathered in the highlands, and slowly took up cultivation. In the Andes they domesticated crops and camelids that would sustain every later civilization.

## Key developments

On the Peruvian coast the Norte Chico or Caral-Supe civilization built large platform mounds and sunken circular plazas from around 3500 BC, the oldest known complex society in the Americas. It thrived on irrigation agriculture and Pacific fishing, apparently without pottery or writing.

## End and transition

The monumental tradition of the coast and highlands set the stage for the temple-building cultures that followed. From these roots grew the long sequence of Andean civilizations.