This book is the first in more than a decade to provide new information on the Chavin phenomenon of ancient Peru. Thought by some to be the "Mother Culture" of ancient Peruvian cultures, Chavin is remarkable for its baroque, sophisticated art style in a variety of media, including finely carved stone monuments, beautifully formed pottery, and magnificent and complex metallurgy. Also, the textiles from Chavin are incredibly innovative, both iconographically and structurally. They, in fact, form the foundation for the later Andean textile evolution. Chapters in this book cover new interpretations of the history of the site of Chavin de Huantar, studies of related cultures, the role of shamanism, and many other topics of interest to specialists and the general reader, alike.

This is the first detailed up-to-date account in English of Chavin and its precursors. Based on the author's intimate knowledge of unprecedented discoveries made over the past two decades, including his own excavations at Chavin and elsewhere, it places special emphasis on the unique character of early Andean civilization and the distinctive processes responsible for its development. A wealth of photographs, drawings and maps accompany the text, including for this expanded edition a new section of color plates.

Oxbow says: December 2005 marked the re-opening of the Petit Palais, Musee des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris, and from April to July 2006 it hosted an exhibition of dazzling artefacts from Peru.

Curated by Peter Fux, with the scientific advice of Luis Guillermo Lumbreras and John W. Rick. A reprint in Spanish of the original title Chavín. Peruœs Enigmatic Temple in the Andesʺ published by The Rietberg Museum(Zürich, Switzerland) in 2012, comprising seventeen essays by the main Peruvian and foreign researchers dedicated to the study of the archaic and formative in the Central Andes periods. The volume includes in addition a catalogue dedicated to the pieces displayed in the exhibition, as well as other individual texts that recognize the artistic and aesthetic quality of art produced in this time.

Perhaps the contributions of South American archaeology to the larger field of world archaeology have been inadequately recognized. If so, this is probably because there have been relatively few archaeologists working in South America outside of Peru and recent advances in knowledge in other parts of the continent are only beginning to enter larger archaeological discourse. Many ideas of and about South American archaeology held by scholars from outside the area are going to change irrevocably with the appearance of the present volume. Not only does the Handbook of South American Archaeology (HSAA) provide immense and broad information about ancient South America, the volume also showcases the contributions made by South Americans to social theory. Moreover, one of the merits of this volume is that about half the authors (30) are South Americans, and the bibliographies in their chapters will be especially useful guides to Spanish and Portuguese literature as well as to the latest research. It is inevitable that the HSAA will be compared with the multi-volume Handbook of South American Indians (HSAI), with its detailed descriptions of indigenous peoples of South America, that was organized and edited by Julian Steward. Although there are heroic archaeological essays in the HSAI, by the likes of Junius Bird, Gordon Willey, John Rowe, and John Murra, Steward states frankly in his introduction to Volume Two that “arch- ology is included by way of background” to the ethnographic chapters.

Synthesizing exceptional cartography and impeccable scholarship, this edition traces 12,000 years of history with 450 maps and over 200,000 words of text. 200 illustrations.