The Valdivia culture is one of the oldest settled cultures recorded in the Americas. It emerged from the earlier
Las Vegas culture
"Las Vegas culture" is the name given to many Archaic settlements which flourished between 8000 BCE and 4600 BCE.(10,000 to 6,600 BP) near the coast of present-day Ecuador. The name comes from the location of the most prominent settlement, Site ...
and thrived on the
Santa Elena peninsula near the modern-day town of Valdivia,
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: ''Eku ...
between 3500 BCE and 1500 BCE.
Culture
![MORTERO LORO VALDIVIA 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/MORTERO_LORO_VALDIVIA_2.JPG)
Remains of the Valdivia culture were discovered in 1956 on the western coast of Ecuador by the Ecuadorian
archeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...
Emilio Estrada, who continued to study this culture. American archeologists Clifford Evans and
Betty Meggers joined him in the early 1960s in studying the type-site.
The Valdivia lived in a community that built its houses in a circle or oval around a central plaza. They were believed to have a relatively egalitarian culture of
sedentary
Sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like soci ...
people who lived mostly off fishing, though they did some farming and occasionally hunted for
deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...
to supplement their diet. From the archeological remains that have been found, it has been determined that Valdivians cultivated
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
,
kidney beans
The kidney bean is a variety of the common bean (''Phaseolus vulgaris''). It resembles a human kidney and thus is named after such. Red kidney beans should not be confused with other red beans, such as adzuki beans.
Classification
There are ...
,
squash
Squash may refer to:
Sports
* Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets
* Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling
* Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...
,
cassava
''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively ...
,
chili pepper
Chili peppers (also chile, chile pepper, chilli pepper, or chilli), from Nahuatl '' chīlli'' (), are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for ...
s and
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
plants. The latter was processed, spun and woven to make clothing.
Valdivian pottery, dated to 2700 BCE, initially was rough and practical, but it became splendid, delicate and large over time. They generally used red and gray colors, and the polished dark red pottery is characteristic of the Valdivia period. In their ceramics and stone works, the Valdivia culture shows a progression from the most simple to much more complicated works.
The trademark Valdivia piece is the "
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
" of Valdivia: feminine ceramic figures. The "Venus" of Valdivia likely represented actual people, as each figurine is individual and unique, as expressed in the hairstyles. The figures were made joining two rolls of clay, leaving the lower portion separated as legs and making the body and head from the top portion. The arms were usually very short, and in most cases were bent towards the chest, holding the breasts or under the chin.
A display of Valdivian artifacts is located at
Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo
(UEES) is a non-profit private university in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Its campus is in Samborondón, Greater Guayaquil. One distinctive program of UEES is the College of International Studies, home to the International Careers Program (ICP), which ...
in
Guayaquil, Ecuador
, motto = Por Guayaquil Independiente en, For Independent Guayaquil
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Ecuador#South America
, pushpin_re ...
.
Influences on Valdivia culture
![Valdivia Female Figurine 2600-1500 BCE Brooklyn Museum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Valdivia_Female_Figurine_2600-1500_BCE_Brooklyn_Museum.jpg)
Ceramic phase A of the Valdivia was long thought to be the oldest pottery produced by a coastal culture in South America, dated to 3000-2700 BCE. In the 1960s, a team of researchers proposed there were significant similarities between the archeological remains and pottery styles of Valdivia and those of the ancient
Jōmon culture, active in this same period on the island of
Kyūshū,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
). They compared both decoration and vessel shape, pointing to techniques of incising. The Early to Middle Jomon pottery had antecedents dating 10,000 years, but the Valdivia pottery style seemed to have developed rather quickly.
[Stuart J. Fiedel, ''Prehistory of the Americas''](_blank)
Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 187-189 In 1962 three archeologists, Ecuadorian Emilio Estrada and Americans Clifford Evans and
Betty Meggers suggested that Japanese fishermen had gotten blown to Ecuador in a storm and introduced their ceramics to Valdivia at that time.
Their theory was based on the idea of
diffusion
Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...
of style and techniques.
Their concept was challenged at the time by other archaeologists, who argued that there were strong logistical challenges to the idea that Japanese could have survived what would have been nearly a year and a half voyage in dugout canoes. The cultures were separated by a distance of 15,000 km (8,000 nautical miles).
Researchers argued that Valdivia ceramics (and culture) had developed independently, and those apparent similarities were a result simply of constraints on technique, and an "accidental convergence" of symbols and style.
In the 1970s, what is believed widely to be conclusive evidence refuting the diffusion theory was found at the Valdivia type-site, as older pottery and artifacts were found below these excavations. Researchers found what is called San Pedro pottery, pre-dating Phase A and the Valdivia style.
[ It was more primitive. Some researchers believe pottery may have been introduced by people from northern Colombia, where comparably early pottery was found at the ]Puerto Hormiga archaeological site The Puerto Hormiga archaeological site is in the Bolivar department, Colombia, in the lower Magdalena basin near the Caribbean coast. It dates to 4000 - 3100 BC.
Its traces provide evidence of a semi-sedentary agricultural society in the makin ...
. In addition, they think that the maize at Valdivia was likely introduced by people living closer to Meosamerica, where it was domesticated. In addition, other pottery remains of the San Pedro style were found at sites about 5.6 miles (9 km) up the river valley.[
Additional research at both several coastal sites, including San Pablo, Real Alto, and Salango, and Loma Alta, Colimes, and San Lorenzo del Mate inland have resulted in a major rethinking of Valdivian culture. It has been reclassified as representing a "tropical forest culture" with a riverine settlement focus. There has been major re-evaluation of nearly every aspect of its culture.]
References
External links
*
Ecuadorian Archaeology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valdivia Culture
Pre-Columbian cultures
History of Ecuador
Indigenous peoples in Ecuador
Indigenous peoples of the Andes
Archaeology of Ecuador
4th millennium BC
Archaic period in the Americas