The oldest pre-Inca culture in Peru (1500 BC. - 300 BC.), they inhabited on the Andean basin of the Marañón River and the "Callejón de Huaylas". Its main cultural center was "Chavín de Huántar".

It was a wandering nation, of great cultural and religious influence in other contemporary cultures of the coast and mountain; its influence area reached from Tumbes to the north, Nazca to the south, and the wild area to the east.

In the early age of this culture, it was a wandering town of hunters and collectors; then it became urban, with development of agriculture, cattle raising, metallurgy and an incipient textile technique. It was a town of religious and warrior organization.

Their ceramic frequently in a globular shape worked by hand with very fine clay. Defined shape, right necks and handles like stirrups. They used the black and gray color, outstanding decorations with incisions and figures in relief, in which the permanent presence of drawings of a deity in feline form with bird claws; of inferior technique in comparison to other Peruvian cultures.

Their architecture and the carving in stone reached great development, outstanding the construction of temples; they used in the constructions cylindrical columns and monoliths. Sculptures of the famous lances (forms of ceremonial knives of great size), outstanding among them the "Estela of Raimondi" and the "Lanzón Monolítico" located in the temple of Chavín de Huántar; there is a certain likeness with the existent ones in the Polinesia and the Pascua Islands (Chile).

MUSEUMS
To appreciate their art and collections of incalculable value in ceramic pieces, sculptures and lances you can go to the Regional Museum of Huaraz, Archaeological of Peru, Larco Herrera, or De la Nación in the city of Lima.