Archaeologists have documented a lengthy, perfectly straight stone alignment extending from an ancient hilltop settlement towards nearby agricultural land and a second hill.
Situated beside a newly recorded temple and extensive fields, the feature indicates that Chimú elites, who governed a formidable pre-Inca society on Peru’s northern coast, connected agricultural labour with organised religious assemblies throughout the landscape.
A line across Chicama
On an arid, exposed plain in Peru’s La Libertad region, deliberately positioned stone rows outlined a direct route close to the town of Chicama Pueblo.
Support from the National University of San Marcos (UNMSM) enabled the Chicama Archaeological Program to continue mapping this recently selected area.
Henry Tantaleán, an archaeologist and co-director at UNMSM, followed the alignment over the plain in the direction of fields in the distance.
Its route through cultivated land pointed to intentional planning on a landscape-wide scale and prepared the way for further discoveries.
Connecting sacred mountains
Researchers describe the stone alignment as a geoglyph: a large-scale design laid out across open terrain.
Measuring roughly 1.9 kilometres, it maintains a direct course comparable to the celebrated Nazca Lines, the enormous ancient figures marked into southern Peru’s desert surface.
The feature extends from Cerro Lescano towards Cerro Tres Cruces and may have joined two apus, or sacred mountains in Andean local belief.
“This is the first clear example in which a Chimú settlement is linked to other elements of the landscape through a ritual path or geoglyph,” said Tantaleán.
Expansive desert agriculture
In the Pampas de Lescano, archaeologists recorded field networks spanning approximately 101 hectares, substantially exceeding previous records from the surrounding area.
Arched furrows and comb-like raised ridges directed rows of crops, with these forms suggesting sustained, coordinated work across many growing seasons.
“We are looking at one of the most extensive agricultural landscapes known to the Chimú world and systematically recorded,” Tantaleán emphasized.
An operation of this size would have required reliable water supplies, storage and supervision, helping to account for the nearby ceremonial centre.
Water moved by canals
Smaller channels split off from the Great Summit Canal into the fields, sustaining crops during the dry season.
Their builders needed to excavate the desert terrain, regulate gradients and limit erosion to ensure that water flowed consistently.
Previous studies of the canal connecting the Chicama and Moche valleys, neighbouring river valleys on the northern coast, demonstrated how vast waterworks combined them into a single, closely managed irrigation network.
If these channels stopped working, the fields would have dried out rapidly; authorities therefore probably relied on both ritual and coercion to ensure continual repairs.
A temple for cycles
Close to the cultivated land stood a north-facing stone platform, 2 to 3 metres high, a layout consistent with Chimú architecture.
At about 40 by 50 metres, the platform overlooked a plaza measuring approximately 100 by 80 metres.
“It is a temple that could have gathered a large number of people,” Tantaleán explained.
Such large-scale meetings could have made sowing and harvesting public occasions, strengthening control over water and labour.
Timeline of Chimú control
Classic Chimú pottery was visible on the ground around the platform, enabling archaeologists to date most use of the site to between AD 1100 and 1470.
In this period, Chimú rulers constructed Chan Chan near Trujillo on Peru’s northern coast; the site survives as an immense adobe city.
Before the Inca conquest, Chimú authorities dominated this area, while later administrators may have made use of the same places.
This extended period of occupation shows that the valley retained strategic importance for generations, meaning new evidence can swiftly alter its local history.
Soil holds plant clues
Limited field excavations yielded soil samples for phytolith and pollen testing, with laboratory analysis still to come. Phytoliths are minute silica forms left in soil as plants decompose.
Earlier investigations in the valley indicated the cultivation of maize, squash and beans, while stone hoes were also recovered at the site.
Laboratory findings may establish the crops that supported this complex and reveal how intensively growers repeatedly cultivated the soil.
Ritual meets management
Across this valley corridor, planners seem to have combined irrigation, cultivation and ceremony into a single framework of obligations.
“Religion, economics, production, and politics came together to drive labor during the Chimú era,” Tantaleán emphasized.
Processional movement along the alignment would have presented leaders as controlling time, water and harvests, rather than merely territory.
Viewed together, these features make it more difficult, even now, to regard the temple and fields as separate archaeological sites.
Threats to preservation
Development proposals now cross the same plain, as power lines, access roads and private ventures intrude upon surviving traces.
Bulldozers may erase stone alignments within hours, while erosion can follow once vehicles create new tracks.
“We’re trying to document everything as quickly as possible because no one can guarantee that these remains will still be intact next week,” Tantaleán warned.
Even comprehensive drone documentation is no substitute for safeguarding the land itself, so preservation decisions will determine what future excavations can discover.
What must happen next
Together, the stone alignment, canals, fields and temple form a managed landscape in which ritual assisted in structuring everyday labour.
Preserving the surviving remains and completing laboratory analyses may show more clearly how Chimú authority extended into every furrow.
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