Aspero is a well-studied site of the ancient Norte Chico civilization

Norte Chico civilization

The Norte Chico civilization was a complex pre-Columbian society that included as many as 30 major population centers in what is now the Norte Chico region of north-central coastal Peru...

, located at the mouth of the Supe river on the north-central Peruvian

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 coast. Monumental architecture, including large platform mound

Platform mound

A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...

s have been discovered at the site; their significance was first determined in 1973, though research had occurred since the 1940s. The diet of Aspero is believed to have been primarily maritime

Seafood

Seafood is any form of marine life regarded as food by humans. Seafoods include fish, molluscs , crustaceans , echinoderms . Edible sea plants, such as some seaweeds and microalgae, are also seafood, and are widely eaten around the world, especially in Asia...

. Research at the site led to the controversial "Maritime Foundations of Andean culture" theory, which suggests that the initial development of ancient Peruvian culture was based on seafood, rather than agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

. The idea is widely disputed.