Ruth Shady


Ruth Martha Shady Solís is a Peruvian anthropologist and archaeologist. She is the founder and director of the archaeological project at Caral.

Career

Throughout her career, she has directed many different projects of archeological investigation on the coast, the highlands and the rain forests of Peru, placing emphasis on the study of the development of the complex socio-political organizations. She was director of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Antropología del Perú, and director of the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology of National University of San Marcos. She has worked at the Caral site from 1994 onwards and is credited with the discovery of Norte Chico, the first known civilization of the Americas, and one of the oldest in the world. Shady has named the civilization after Caral, while the term Norte Chico has been adopted in English.
In 2001, Shady and others published radiocarbon dates from the site of Caral in the Supe Valley of Peru, indicating that monumental corporate architecture, urban settlement, and irrigation agriculture began in the Americas by 4090 years before the present to 3640 years before the present. Caral is located inland from the Pacific coast and contains a central zone of monumental, residential, and nonresidential architecture covering an area of. Caral is one of 18 large preceramic sites in the Supe Valley.
Shady holds the offices of President of ICOMOS-PERU, principal professor and co-ordinator of the master of archeology graduate program faculty of social sciences of the University of San Marcos and director of the special archeological project Caral-Supe/INC.

Awards