A Peruvian fortress-temple in the desert

In 2022, archaeologists from the University of Toronto and the University of Trujillo began the first excavations of Cerro Prieto Espinal, a mountainside fortress-temple and settlement in north coastal Peru. Across the 3km-wide site, the team identified massive concentric walls, ceremonial platforms, habitation terraces, and cemeteries. While originally thought to have been occupied c.AD 450-1470, from the Moche to the Chimú and Inca periods, surface collection has revealed possible examples of much earlier Formative period ceramics, potentially pushing the date of the site back as far as 500-100 BC. Moche ceramics often feature warriors fighting mass battles on mountainsides, and the a