An ancient, lost city dating back to between 1800 and 1500 BC has been unearthed by archaeologists in Peru's northern Barranca province.
The city, named Penico, is located around 200km north of Lima and is thought to have served as a key connection between communities living on the coast and those in the Andes mountains and Amazon basin.
Peñico is also close to where the oldest known civilisation in the Americas – Caral – was founded 5000 years ago in the Supe valley of Peru.
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Over eight painstaking years of research, archaeologists identified the remains of 18 structures, including stone and mud buildings.
In one building, designs of pututus, musical instruments, can be seen depicted on the walls of a quadrangular hall.
The pututu, a shell trumpet that emits a sound audible over long distances, played crucial role in Andean societies: convening meetings, and announcing important events, and was considered a symbol of social significance.
It was also considered an important ritual offering to the deities, in gratitude for benefits requested and received.
Clay sculptures of humans and animals, beaded necklaces and ceremonial artefacts were found in the ruins of the buildings.
Archaeologist Dr Ruth Shady, who is the director of the Caral Archaeological Zone and led the recent research into Peñico and the excavation of Caral in the 1990s, told Reuters that the discovery was important for understanding what became of the Caral civilisation after it was decimated by climate change.
The Peñico community was "situated in a strategic location for trade, for exchange with societies from the coast, the highlands and the jungle", Shady was quoted by Reuters as saying.
