News Archaeology

Peru’s plenty brought ancient human migration to a crawl

Abundant food let early Americans stay put

mound and excavation

STOP SPOT  From around 15,000 to 8,000 years ago, New World settlers intermittently camped along Peru’s coast and exploited the region’s marine and inland food sources rather than continuing to trek southward, excavations (right) of an earthen mound called Huaca Prieta (left) show.

T. Dillehay

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Some of the earliest settlers of the Americas curtailed their coastal migration to hunker down in what’s now northwestern Peru, new finds suggest.