PRESENTATION
When we think of the past in Peru, we usually associate it with the best times we, as a people, have experienced; nevertheless there is much that we do not know. The ancient history of Peru, the history of pre-Columbian man is being revealed thanks to the interest of a group of scientists and support from a number of institutions.

The FOGAPI foundation, in addition to its important role as an institution regulated by the Peruvian financial system facilitating guarantees to the small and microbusiness sector (MYPE) so that this sector can gain access to credit; also helps to make known work to uncover the cultural heritage of Peru, through which 28 million Peruvians can view their own origin and discover a long history of success in a difficult environment.

Just as in 2003 we promoted the Colonial Painting of Cuzco, so in 2004 we promoted Caral and the origins of civilisation in America. Publications issued in 2005 will be include text, photographs and illustrations of the Huaca Pucllana Ceremonial Centre, which belongs to the Lima culture. We begin with the Annual Report for 2004 itself.

The moral commitment to continue to promote the cultural heritage of Peru demands that we present one of the main ceremonial centres in the country's capital, whose different cultural expressions, seen in the illustrations accompanying this annual report, will be summarised briefly.

We would like to thank the team led by Dr Isabel Flores Espinoza, director of the Huaca Pucllana Archaeological Project, for providing us with information from her research, conservation and rescue of our cultural values for the benefit of all of us.

The excavation at Pucllana started in 196, thanks to the enthusiasm of the Municipality of Miraflores which invited representatives of the National Cultural Institute to join forces and work towards the recovery and conservation of our heritage.

Today, after 38 years of hard work, this enthusiasm continues unabated and the archaeological project is a model for all Peru of how cultural heritage can be managed.

Between 200 and 700 A D in the area including the valleys of Chancay, Chillon, Rimac and Lurin lived a people known to archaeologists as the "Lima Culture". Evidence of this culture (ceramics, buildings, irrigation channels and fields, among others) has been found scattered throughout the area although some have now been destroyed by the expansion of the modern city.
Pucllana was one of the ceremonial centres of this culture.

During this time the Lima Culture developed in parallel with other cultures: in the north the Moche, Cajamarca and Recuay, in the south the Nazca and in the east the Warpa were the principal cultures. In a wider context, the Lima Culture is contemporaneous with the Zapotecas in Central America, where sites like Teotihuacan and Monte Alban were at the height of their splendour. The Hang Dynasty was being founded in China while Europe lived through the final period of the Western Roman Empire.

The Pucllana ceremonial site dates from the final stage of development of the Lima Culture, which occupied it for 300 years. After this period certain drastic climate changes had an effect on the peoples of the zone; thus, after 700 A D Pucllana was occupied by the Wari, a warrior culture from the highlands of Ayacucho who managed to impose their hegemony almost all over Peru. The Wari occupation of Pucllana lasted 200 years but it was used only as a cemetery for the Wari elite. Finally, when the Wari culture decayed, Huaca Pucllana was occupied by a local culture called the Ischma, until 1470 when it and the territory it occupied were annexed by the Quechuas to form part of the Inca Empire.