Monumental centres of some kind were already appearing in the Rio Supe region in the third millennium BC.47 Later, between 1000 and 200 BC, a single centre – at Chavín de Huántar, in the northern highlands of Peru – extended its influence over a much larger area.48 This ‘Chavín horizon’ gave way to three distinct regional cultures. In the central highlands arose a militarized polity known as Wari. In parallel, on the shores of Lake Titicaca, a metropolis called Tiwanaku – at 420 hectares, roughly twice the size of Uruk or Mohenjo-daro – took form, using an ingenious system of raised fields to
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