"Before the Incas and the Chimu and the Mochica, a culture named by scholars Chavin flourished in the mountains that lie in northern Peru between the coast and the Amazon basin. One of its first explorers, Julio C. Tello (Chavin and other works) called it "the matrix of Andean civilization." It takes us back to at least 1500 B.C.; and like that of the Olmec civilization in Mexico at the same time,"