Huaca Prieta is the site of a prehistoric coastal settlement in the Chicama

Chicama, Peru

Chicama is a port and small coastal town in northwestern Peru, located in the La Libertad Region, north of the city of Trujillo. The town and beach are also called Puerto Malabrigo....

 valley, Peru. Consisting of a huge midden mound, it was first excavated by Junius B. Bird

Junius Bird

Junius Bouton Bird , born in Rye, New York, was an American archaeologist who was appointed curator of South American Archaeology at American Museum of Natural History in 1931...

 in 1946–1947. The site is the remains of a pre-pottery culture that lived here from 3,100–1,300 BCE. The remains include a number of examples of textiles, including those in the style of the Chavín culture

Chavín culture

The Chavín were a civilization that developed in the northern Andean highlands of Peru from 900 BC to 200 BC. They extended their influence to other civilizations along the coast. The Chavín were located in the Mosna Valley where the Mosna and Huachecsa rivers merge...

. The residents of this site lived in single-room dwellings built from whale bones and timber. For food, the midden mound included sea-urchins and shell-fish. The inhabitants hunted or scavenged for fish and porpoises, and various fruit, seeds and tubers were gathered from the surroundings. The remains include flakes and simple pebble tools, but no projectile heads.