The Cara culture flourished in coastal

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Ekua ...

, in what is now

Manabí Province Manabí () is a province in Ecuador. Its capital is Portoviejo. The province is named after the Manabí people. Demographics Ethnic groups as of the Ecuadorian census of 2010: *Mestizo 66.7% *Montubio 19.2% * Afro-Ecuadorian 6.0% *White 7.7 ...

, in the first millennium CE.

History

In the 10th century CE, they followed the

Esmeraldas River The Esmeraldas River is a river in northwestern Ecuador that flows into the Pacific Ocean at the city of Esmeraldas. Among its tributaries is the Guayllabamba River which drains Quito. Charles Marie de la Condamine Charles Marie de La Conda ...

up to the high Andean valley now developed as the city

San Francisco de Quito Quito (; qu, Kitu), formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley on ...

. They defeated the local Quitu tribe and set up a kingdom. The combined Quitu-Cara culture was also known as the Shyris or Scyris civilization, or the Caranqui civilization, which thrived from 800 CE to the 1470s. For more than four centuries under the kings, called ''shyris'', of the Cara, the Kingdom of Quito dominated much of highlands of modern Ecuador. The Cara and their allies were narrowly defeated in the epic battles of Tiocajas and Tixán in 1462, by an army of 250,000 led by

Túpac Inca Topa Inca Yupanqui or Túpac Inca Yupanqui ( qu, 'Tupaq Inka Yupanki'), translated as "noble Inca accountant," (c. 1441–c. 1493) was the tenth Sapa Inca (1471–93) of the Inca Empire, fifth of the Hanan dynasty. His father was Pachacuti, and h ...

, the son of the Emperor of the Inca. After several decades of consolidation, the Kingdom of Quito became integrated into the

Incan Empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

. In 1534 the Quitu-Cara culture were conquered by the Spanish. They became extinct as a tribe chiefly from exposure to new European infectious diseases, which took a heavy toll in fatalities. In addition, the Spanish conquerors married Quitu-Cara women. Their descendants continued to intermarry, producing the

mestizo (; ; fem. ) is a term used for racial classification to refer to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ...

population of the region who gradually became disconnected from their indigenous heritage. Historians

Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño (11 December 1890 – 17 August 1950) was an Ecuadorian historian, archeologist, and politician. He was the mayor of the city of Quito (the capital of Ecuador) from 1946 to 1948. He was a member of the Ecuadorian parlia ...

and

Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco (October 12, 1908 – May 1, 1993) — born Alfredo Pareja y Díez Canseco — was a prominent Ecuadorian novelist, essayist, journalist, historian and diplomat. An innovator of the 20th-century Latin American nove ...

contested the existence of such a Kingdom, and suggested that it was a legendary pre-Hispanic account. No archeological evidence of Quitu had been found. But in the early 21st century, there was a major find of sophisticated tombs, dating to 800 CE, in the Florida neighborhood of Quito. They are 20 meters deep, and each holds the remains of a total of 10 individuals in three levels, accompanied by grave goods of textiles, carved pieces, and food and drink for the afterlife. The Museum of Florida opened in 2010 in the neighborhood to hold artifacts and interpretive material related to Quitu culture, including figures of a man and a woman dressed in traditional Quitu clothing.

Legacy

The

Caranqui language Caranqui, or Cara (Kara), is an extinct, probably Barbacoan language of Ecuador. Caranqui was replaced by Quechua, perhaps surviving as late as the 18th century. It seems in turn to have influenced Imbabura Quechua. There are similarities betwe ...

is preserved in place names, such as the city of ''Carán'', and the martial term ''Shyri'', still in use in the Ecuadorean Army.

References

History of Ecuador Andean civilizations Pre-Columbian cultures {{SouthAm-ethno-group-stub