The often unknown region of the Archaeological north of Peru is missed by thousands of visitors every year. The North is home to a stimulating and memorizing range of pre-Hispanic (and even pre-Inca) ruins and monuments. Many people have heard of Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley, but what do you know about the Sun & Moon Temples and the Valley of the Pyramids?

Once the center of the Lambayeque, Moche, and Chimu cultures, known for their advanced metallurgy, now the areas surrounding Chiclayo and Trujillo are primarily agricultural and produce very high quality cotton, rice, and sugar.  These societies existed from about 400AD until the rise of the Incas in about 1400 AD. Today you can visit and explore the pyramids, wander around the colonial cities, observe the local rural lifestyle which still maintains many elements of the pre-Hispanic local culture and enjoy the numerous awe-inspiring archaeological findings at the local museums- arguably the best in Peru. What makes these societies so mystical is that not much is known about all these as they used no form of writing to record their history – only recording on works of art and ceramics.

First time visitors should start in the city of Trujillo, Peru’s third city. In Trujillo you can visit colonial, governmental and religious monuments in this beautiful city. Nearby you can visit the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon. These are pyramid structures were built around 500 AD and the biggest of these is thought to be the largest pre-Columbian structure found in Peru. The Temple of The Sun is the larger structure but unfortunately much of has been washed away. Early looters had diverted the local river to access some hidden chambers in their search for gold, washing away much of the structure. Nearby is the other pyramid of the Temple of the Moon which is better preserved and excavated more extensively.

5 km away from Trujillo are the ruins of Chan Chan, which was the largest pre-Hispanic city in South America. The extensive ruins are a testament to the advanced civilizations that lived here for many centuries before Columbus ‘discovered’ South America. Built by the Moche people it covers a land area of 20 km and used to be home to about 30,000 people before conquest by the Inca’s in about 1470 AD.

From Trujillo visitors should make their way to the coastal city of Chiclayo. The city houses the Royal Tombs Museum, home to the Lord of Sipán, one of Peru’s most spectacular discoveries unearthed in 1987 and considered to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries from the last 50 years. The city is also home to a number of other museums and cultural centers.

Near to the city you also have the archaeological complex of Tucume, known as ‘The Valley of the Pyramids’. The Tucume complex is massive and includes 26 adobe pyramids and mounds that were built by the Sican civilization around 1,000 A.D.

Seeing all these sights makes you appreciate the ancient histories and culture that exist in this great country. What strikes you is how the new Peru is molded around its rich and proud heritage.

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico–A fascinating idea came up in an informal chat I had yesterday with asteroid expert Erik Asphaug of the University of California, Santa Cruz. The early solar system was a veritable shooting gallery. Our moon is thought to have formed when a Mars-size body hit Earth and threw out a cloud of debris that coalesced in orbit around our young planet. In his talk Monday at the annual Division for Planetary Sciences meeting here, Asphaug reported that the incoming body had to hit at a fairly low velocity. Any faster, and the debris would have scattered into interplanetary space. In that case, whatever body coalesced would not have been a moon, but a planet in its own right. Riffing on his talk, Asphaug has a provocative answer for one of my favorite questions in planetary science: Why doesn’t Venus have a moon ? How did it manage to dodge all the bullets flying around the early solar system? Asphaug suggests that maybe it didn’t. Maybe Venus got hit worse than we did, so that a planet rather than a moon was the outcome. [More]