Ruth Shady

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Ruth Shady after anarchaeology conference atUniversity of San

Marcosin Lima, Peru.
Ruth Martha Shady Sols (born 29 December 1946, Callao, Per) is
a Peruvian anthropologist and archaeologist. She is the founder and
director of the archaeological project at Caral.
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 Arqueologa y Antropologa del Per (National
museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of Peru), 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 the first known civilization of Peru; 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 (2627 calibrated years
B.C.) to 3640 years before the present (1977 calibrated years B.C.).
Caral is located 23 kilometers (14 miles) inland from the Pacific coast
and contains a central zone of monumental, residential, and
nonresidential architecture covering an area of 65 hectares (160
acres). Caral is one of 18 largepreceramic sites in the Supe Valley.
Dr. 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 theUniversity of San Marcos and
director of the special archeological project Caral-Supe/INC.