The Machalilla were a prehistoric people in

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: ' ...

, in southern Manabí and the Santa Elena Peninsula. The dates when the culture thrived are uncertain, but are generally agreed to encompass 1500

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

to 1100 BCE.Timeline of Art History: South America, 2000–1000 b.c.
Met. Accessed August 2, 2007

Machalilla Culture

The Machalilla were an agricultural people who also pursued

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

hunting and gathering A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

. Like many prehistoric cultures of coastal Ecuador, the people practiced

artificial cranial deformation Artificial cranial deformation or modification, head flattening, or head binding is a form of body alteration in which the skull of a human being is deformed intentionally. It is done by distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying ...

by using stones to flatten and lengthen their skulls.Ecuador/The Galapagos Background
''

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'' Accessed August 2, 2007. Archaeologists focus on the unusual cemeteries of the Machalilla, in which bodies were settled beneath a ceramic turtle shell,Exploring Ecuador: Machalilla
Accessed August 2, 2007 and on their ceramic work in general, which represented artistic and technological advances in the art.Pre-Columbian Art
Embassy of Ecuador in Washington DC. Accessed August 2, 2007. The Machalilla are credited with adding to the ceramic bottle the stirrup spout, in which two spouts join together into one opening: an invention that would be prominent in northwest

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

for centuries. Archaeologists have also excavated ceramic pots, pitchers, whistles, candlesticks and human figures from Machalilla digs.

Time frame

The date range of the culture is obscured. It is sometimes listed as early as 1800 BCE and as late as 800 BCE. One of the problems with determining the proper date range is the method of cultural termination. According to archaeologists Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans, the Machalilla culture was altered by

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...

n contact until it blended into the Chorrera culture.Meggers, Betty J. and Clifford Evans. "The Machalilla Culture: An Early Formative Complex on the Ecuadorian Coast." ''American Antiquity'', Vol. 28, No. 2 (Oct., 1962), pp. 186-192. Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo UEES in Guayaquil, Ecuador has a collection of Machalilla artifacts.

References

Sources and external links

Exploring Ecuador: Machalilla
(English)

(Spanish)
Machalilla
- Casa del alabado, Quito-Ecuador (English)
Machalilla
- Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino (English) *http://www.ecuador-travel-planner.com/machalillanationalpark {{DEFAULTSORT:Machalilla Culture History of Ecuador Pre-Columbian cultures Archaeological cultures of South America

Machalilla Culture

Time frame

See also

References

Sources and external links