An ancient temple, as old as Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, was discovered in the Peruvian Andes. An observatory sits at the top of a 33-foot pyramid and reveals the existence of a previously unknown civilization sophisticated enough to calculate celestial math.
Radiocarbon dates the site at around 2200 B.C., 3 millennia before the Incas.
The temple features a large, round frowning face, oriented toward the winter solstice.
Scientists believe it could be the earliest known representation of the goddess, Pacha Mama.
Another statue of a human figure looks through a window and marks the line of the summer solstice.
Until these ruins were discovered. archaeologists believed that the first sophisticated civilization emerged some 800 years later.
More on this in the L.A. Times.
