Background

Carlos Williams and Manuel Merino registered this place as Chupacigarro Centro (Williams and Merino 1979). Later, Frederic Engel dug a trench in the main building of the settlement and published this building’s plan, with some comments about the society that built it (Engel 1987). Elzbieta Zechenter also obtained samples for radiocarbon dating of the site, which result was 3980 +- 90 BP (2571 to 2291 B.C.) (Zechenter, 1988). Ruth Shady and her team of investigators examined the place, as part of the exploration they did in the Supe valley from 1994 to 1996 (Shady et al. 2000).

ZAC started working in Chupacigarro in 1999, when 50% of the site had already been destroyed by a family, which affected the monuments and other archaeological evidences. Though Chupacigarro was declared cultural heritage in 2002, and was transferred to the National Institute of Culture in 2006, the legal procedures initiated to protect the site continue because the site continues being periodically affected, which has been brought to Court.

With the beginning of investigations it was possible to strengthen the site’s protection and deepen the knowl- edge on Caral civilization. The first intervention, focused on identifying the urban design and studying the main building was in charge of Marco Machacuay (Machacuay, 2008).

Such task and the subsequent works -which continue to date- are being carried out by ZAC’s team of investigators.