QUIRINO OLIVERA NUÑEZ
MEET THE DIRECTOR OF HUACA MONTEGRANDE
Born in Santa Cruz, Cajamarca, he moved with his family to Amazonas at the age of five, where he grew up cultivating cacao trees. He attended a rural school with students of various ages and only one teacher before transferring to the San José public school in the city of Chiclayo, where he completed his studies. He earned his professional degree in archaeology from the National University of Trujillo and went on to receive a doctorate, with honors and the "Cum Laude" distinction, in Art History and Cultural Management in the Hispanic World from Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain.
He is a deep admirer of Dr. Julio C. Tello, widely regarded as the father of archaeology in Peru, who, more than a century ago, proposed the hypothesis that the origin of Andean civilization lay in the Amazon. In 2009, Quirino Olivera, convinced that highly developed civilizations once thrived in the Amazon, resigned from his position as cultural manager at the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum—where he had worked for 17 years—in order to pursue his dream of conducting research in the Amazon.
Foto: Heinz Plenge
Foto: Luis Miranda
Since 2010, Quirino Olivera has not only realized his dream of conducting research in the Amazon, but also validated Dr. Julio C. Tello's hypothesis. He has discovered the existence of the Marañón Culture, a pre-Columbian Amazonian civilization whose inhabitants built the Montegrande temple 5,500 years ago—marking the dawn of religion in the region. The Marañón were deeply integrated into their environment, producing their own food and sustaining a surplus economy based on agriculture. This allowed them to engage in practices such as monumental architecture, pottery, basketry, textile production, and stone, wood, and bone sculpture. Most notably, they played a key role in the domestication and use of important botanical species like Theobroma cacao.
Quirino Olivera has published books and several articles on his archaeological research. In 2013, the Shanghai Archaeology Forum and the Chinese Academy of Sciences recognized his research as “One of the Ten Best Archaeological Discoveries in the World”. In 2018, he was distinguished in the city of Glen Cove, in New York, United States, and in 2023 the Ministry of Culture of Peru awarded him the distinction of Meritorious Personality of Culture. He has also received distinctions from the Congress of the Republic of Peru, the Regional Government of Cajamarca and the Provincial Municipality of Jaén.
Currently, Quirino Olivera presides over the Association for Scientific Research in the Peruvian Amazon (ASICAMPE), an organization authorized by the Ministry of Culture as holder of the Marañon Archaeological Research Program (PRIAM), for conservation and enhancement purposes, through which archaeological research is being developed in the great spiral-shaped architectural structure of Montegrande where it has been possible to record evidence of the oldest known Theobroma Cacao in the history of mankind.
Interview by Jordi Batallé from Radio France International with Dr. Quirino Olivera in París.