The wide strip stretching from the Piura to the Huarmey valleys and rising to the upper Maranon river basin in the first center of cultural development en Peru. The rivers running across this area –some of which like the Jequetepeque and the Santa carry waters all along the year- prompted the building of irrigation systems. Lower mountain heights in this region let humid air masses move freely and permit the growth of a humid tropical forest in some highland regions, much like the tropical typically found on the eastern Andean slops. The domes-dictation of tropical tubers and the diffusion of corn started here.
Almost since the end of the pre-ceramic period (around 2.700 BC) an impressive development took place in this area. Names of local styles like Sechin, Cupisnique, Salinar, Mochica, Lambayeque and Chimu on the Coast and Huacaloma, Chavin, Layzon, Huaraz, Recuay and Cajamarca in the Highlands remind us of later periods in the region’s rich ancient history. Further north, the Chira and Tumbes basins lie at the border with the Northern Andes.
