Peru is best known as the heart of the Inca Empire, but it was home to many diverse cultures long before the Incas arrived. Although hunter gatherers lived in Peru as long ago as the eighth millennium BC, there is little evidence of organized village life until about 3000 BC. A change in climate in the coastal regions prompted Peru's early inhabitants to move toward the more fertile interior river valleys, this movement propitiated the develop of organized settlements.

For the next 1500 years, Peruvian civilization developed into a number of organized cultures as the Paracas society, developed between approximately 750 BC and 100 AD, in the Paracas Peninsula, located in what today is the Paracas District of the Pisco Province in the Ica Region.

Paracas, as an archaeological site, was discovered in 1925 by the archaeologist Julio C. Tello, when the Cavernas Areas were found. Later, in 1927, a another archaeological site was found at the foot of Cerro Colorado this place has been called the "Paracas Necropolis", because it was one huge cemetery - a veritable city of the dead, buried in all their finery and adorned with ceremonial and symbolic items; each of the differently sized compartments was considered a "funeral chamber", and a total of 429 corpses were found, wrapped in marvelous embroidered shrouds. The funeral chambers had been built over the remains of older settlements.

An interesting aspect of the religions of the Paracas and all the other known pre-Hispanic cultures, is their cult of the dead, evidencing a deep interest in conciliating all the different traditions and rituals transmitted orally from one generation to the next, as well as the painstaking care shown in their preparation of cemeteries, funeral wraps and each of the items that accompanied the deceased on his or her final voyage.

Most of the information about the lives of the Paracas people comes from excavations at the large seaside Paracas necropolis; it is one of its most important characteristics. Underground necropolis where bodies were preserved as mummies wrapped in luxurious cloths and mantles, forming conical bales that were conserved under excellent conditions by the characteristics of the sands of the area, and cranial trepanations. Many of these bundles contained sheet-gold masks as well as offerings of Spondylus shell imported from the Ecuadorian coast far to the north.

Their knowledge of medicine was advanced, just as is demonstrated by the remains of surgical operations to the brain (cranial trepanations) with the patients' survival. These people used to deform their skulls while still alive, giving them a 'lengthened head'.

The lords of Paracas lived in multi-tiered dwellings built on the slopes of hills. These lords wore stunning garments decorated with of embroidered images of their gods; the rich colors and intricate designs of their garments resemble paintings more than embroidered textiles. Fine garments such as these defined social position and status. In addition, the members of the Paracas elite wore wigs or colored their hair with a red pigment containing poisonous mercury that often led to an early death for the society’s elite.

Paracas mantles feature figures of ritually costumed priests, each clutching an animal by his side. Both priests and animals display human and animal traits, illustrating the religious connections between the social and natural orders. Mantles of this complexity belonged to the ruling elite and were worn only on important religious and festive occasions. Some were intended as burial clothes to be worn in the afterlife, representing the deceased’s status and office in the land of the ancestor spirits.

The Paracas culture, as well as all of the Pre-Columbian cultures from Peru did not have writing or other similar way of communication. Notwithstanding, it have not seem to be a problem not only for the preservation of their traditions, cultural heritage and believes, but also for the transmission of their technological advances such as the cranial trepanations. We do not know if they had a rigorous oral system or another way of preserve their knowledge, but we could be sure they know how to achieve their permanence in time.