Perhaps something got lost in translation?
Archaeologists are excited for this find because it comes with a visitor's center and a parking lot.
Looking at a couple other articles I gather that it was announced as open to the public? Another article mentioned that they have been working on the site for over 8 years: https://www.reuters.com/science/archaeologists-peru-unveil-3...
Probably timed to coincide with the peak of the tourist season in Peru. Dry season is May-Oct (not at all advisable to visit Machu Picchu in the wet season). Jul-Aug is summer holidays for Europeans, who are the biggest cohort of international tourists in Peru (and summer holidays for North Americans). And Peru's independence day is 28 Jul, so locals take an (often extended) long weekend, so a bit of a spike in domestic tourism coming up too.
Eight years of research at the site unearthed 18 structures, including ceremonial temples and residential complexes....
>Researchers say the discovery sheds light on what became of the Americas' oldest civilisation, the Caral.
Oldest civilization is a bit of a stretch. Earliest surviving structures is a stretch, but it's one we know about, so I guess they have to base it off that. More and more evidence is showing that humans were in the Americas farther back in time. While they weren't the builders of of fine stonework and megalithic structures like the Olmec (that we know of), there were certainly civilizations and cities before humans suddenly started building the massive pyramids and cities we have uncovered so far. There's a lot of secrets still hidden in the South American jungles.
Caral at 5000 years old is quite old! For additional context the Pyramids of Giza are ~4600 years old and Stonehenge is ~5100 years old. Given that it's in Peru this does not counter your narrative. But Archaeology is a Science and they cannot definitively say there is an older city without discovering it. It also might be unlikely to find what would be qualified as a "City" that is older. We've certainly found much older human settlements in the Americas, but megalithic building and cities is harder to say. Perhaps we'll find packed earth ones somewhere, but Peru really did have the jump on what would term "complex societies" in the Americas
Archaeology is a collection of arbitrary-but-largely-agreed-upon definitions. That doesn't make it a science. The entire focus on whether or not this is a civilization (or indeed why such a determination matters) is a great example of why you should abandon consensus at the door.
It's not like we don't know about a bunch of different peoples that existed even earlier (i.e. Toca da Tira Peia is ~22 kYa), but the evidence we have of them is basically a few burial mounds and maybe some domestic structures, and that does not rise to the threshold of a civilization for the intents and purposes of archaeology.
(maintained by one Gonzalo Chavez https://x.com/gchavez101 )
> "They're not extraterrestrials. They're dolls made from animal bones from this planet joined together with modern synthetic glue," said Flavio Estrada, an archeologist with Peru's Institute for Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences. "It's totally a made-up story," Estrada added.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/scientists-assert-ali...
- demand your salary be paid in salt
- have all arenas be covered in sand
- calculate only with pebbles
- only allow xylophones made of wood
And so on. It's a tiring journey to embark on -- oops, one can only embark on ships...
https://www.savagechickens.com/2007/08/public-service-announ...
OED dates the first known use of "to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate" to 1660.
But "decimate"? How often do you feel the need to refer to reducing the size of something by one tenth? This is bizarrely specific and I highly doubt it ever has any real applications unless you invent one.
I instantly howled with anguish. Surely decimating them should mean removing NINE tenths. The Master was a small-minded coward.
Seriously though, languages change.