AT A GLANCE
Why go?
High on the eastern flank of Peru's Cordillera Negra, a few kilometres from the town of Mancos in the Callejón de Huaylas valley, the Cueva de Guitarreros (Guitarrero Cave) marks one of the earliest known human footprints in the Andes. Excavated in the 1960s by American archaeologist Thomas Lynch, the rock shelter has yielded a human jawbone carbon-dated to around 10,610 BCE and traces of campfires, stone tools and woven plant fibres that stretch back more than ten thousand years.↗↗↗
What makes the cave internationally famous is its evidence of early farming: some of the oldest cultivated beans, chili, squash, lúcuma and other crops found anywhere in the Americas were recovered here, earning its ancient inhabitants a reputation as some of the first horticulturists on the continent. The shelter itself is small and unglamorous, but it sits dramatically above the Santa River with snow-capped Huascarán and Huandoy rising across the valley.↗↗
Open to free, self-guided visits, Guitarrero Cave is a rewarding stop for travellers based in Huaraz or Yungay who want a genuine slice of deep Andean prehistory rather than a polished museum. A short hike on a signposted footpath brings you to the triangular mouth of the cave, where an interpretive board explains the discoveries that reshaped the story of how people first settled and farmed the high Andes.
