9.9308°S, 76.2794°W.
Kotosh is a stone temple complex in the upper Huallaga valley near Huanuco in central Peru, occupied from roughly 2500 BCE through the Early Horizon. The site is best known for the Templo de las Manos Cruzadas, a small ceremonial chamber with a central hearth flanked by two life-sized mud reliefs of crossed forearms — among the oldest monumental sculptures known from the Americas. Excavations by Seiichi Izumi and a University of Tokyo team between 1960 and 1966 defined the Kotosh Religious Tradition, a preceramic ritual pattern centered on small enclosed rooms with sunken hearths and subfloor flues for burnt offerings. The walls were repeatedly buried and rebuilt directly above the older shrines, preserving the earlier chambers intact. Kotosh sits at 1,950 metres elevation on a low terrace above the Higueras River.
The crossed-hands reliefs remain in place beneath a protective shelter, the right hand laid carefully over the left.