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China sends archaeologists to South America to trace ancestral links for the first time
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Ling Xinin OhioPublished: 10:00pm, 25 Aug 2026
Chinese archaeologists are heading to South America for the first field project on the continent in search of ancestral bonds between ancient Chinese and native American civilisations.
Under an agreement signed by national research institutions from the two countries in Supe, Peru on Friday, archaeologists from China will soon start working with their Peruvian counterparts in the Caral archaeological zone – home to the oldest known urban centre in the Americas.
The joint archaeological team will start the project with field surveys exploring the basins of the Chancay-Huaral and Supe rivers and key sites such as the Sacred City of Caral and the coastal settlement of Aspero.
Jia Xiaobing from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Archaeology, who led the Chinese delegation in Supe, said the collaboration would cover field surveys and excavations, the use of advanced technologies in archaeology, heritage conservation and researcher training.
The archaeological community believes that Chinese and American civilisations descended from the same ancestor. Despite being separated by vast oceans, Chinese and Peruvian civilisations share interesting similarities in areas such as astronomical observation and spiritual beliefs, according to a statement from Jia’s institute.
It said the Chinese team would be searching for first-hand archaeological data on early American civilisations, which would help comparative studies of ancient civilisations around the Pacific Rim and offer a Chinese academic perspective to global research on the origins of early complex societies.
Caral emerged about 5,000 years ago in what is now Peru. Its people built large settlements and monumental architecture centuries before pottery became common in the region, and the civilisation flourished for more than a thousand years.
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