Archaeologists announced the discovery of an ancient city in the northern Barranca province of Peru.

The 3,500 -year -old city, called Peñico, is estimated to serve as a basic trading hub that connected the Pacific coastlines with those living in the Andean mountains and in the Amazon basin.

It is about 200 kilometers north of Lima, about 600 meters above sea level and was founded between 1,800 and 1,500 BC. – about the same time that the first civilizations flourished in the Middle East and Asia, the BBC notes.

Researchers argue that the discovery shed light on what happened to America’s oldest culture, Karal.

Footage from an unmanned aircraft released by the researchers show a circular structure on a terrace on the slope of a hill in the city center, surrounded by the remnants of stone and muddy buildings.

Eight years of research in the area brought to light 18 structures, including temples and residential complexes.

In the buildings in the area, researchers discovered ritual objects, clay sculptures of human and animal forms and necklaces of beads and shells.

The connection to America’s oldest culture

Peñico is located near the point where CARAL was founded, recognized as the oldest known culture on the American continent, 5,000 years ago, about 3,000 BC in the SUPE Valley of Peru.

The karal has 32 monuments, including large pyramids, sophisticated irrigation farming and urban settlements.

Dr. Ruth Sheidi, the archaeologist who led the recent research on the Penic and Karal’s excavation in the 1990s, said the discovery was important to understand what happened to Karal’s culture after his extinction from climate change.

The Peñico community “was in a strategic position for trade, for exchanges with coastal societies, highlands and jungle,” Sheidi told Reuters news agency.

At a press conference on the presentation of the findings on Thursday, archaeologist Marco MachaCuay, a researcher at the Ministry of Culture, said that the importance of Peñico lies in being a continuation of CARAL society.

Peru hosts many of the most important archaeological discoveries of the American continent, including the Acropolis of Inca, Matsu Picchu, in the Andes and the Mysterious Nazka lines engraved in the desert along the central coast.