Santa Ana (La Florida)

Santa Ana (La Florida) is an important archaeological site in the highlands of Ecuador, going back as early as 3,500 BC. It is located in the Palanda Canton, just to the north of its regional capital of es:Palanda, in the Zamora-Chinchipe Province of Ecuador.[1]

Geography

This ancient settlement is located on the eastern slope of the Andes, in a transitional zone between the highlands and the lowland jungles in a narrow Palanda River valley. The small Palanda River flows into Mayo-Chinchipe river, and eventually into the Rio Marañon.[2]

The two principal zones of the site cover an area of about 1 hectare.

Research

The work in this area was started in 2002 by a team of French and Ecuadoran archaeologists.

Santa-Ana/La Florida has been studied by archaeologists since then, under the leadership of Francisco Valdez. This represents a discovery of a new ancient culture in the Chinchipe river basin on the border of present-day Ecuador and Peru.

It is now known as Mayo-Chinchipe culture; its area extends from the Podocarpus National Park in Ecuador, to the area where Chinchipe River flows into the Marañon (near Bagua, Peru). This ancient culture received its name from the river names.[3] In Ecuador, the river is known as Chinchipe, while in Peru it's known as Mayo.

Carbon dated to 5,500 BP (3,500 BC), these discoveries belong to the early Formative Period in Ecuadorian chronology, and to the Archaic or Preceramic period of Peru.[4] A village with a central sunken plaza has been discovered. One of the two artificial platforms features a temple with a spiral configuration, and a ceremonial hearth, where a cache of greenstone offerings had been found.

"Several tombs have been documented with fine ceramic vessels; exquisite polished stone bowls and mortars, as well as hundreds of turquoise and malachite beads fragments of Strombus sea shells, and small sculptures."[5][6]

A range of diverse objects have been found, such as ceramic bottles, plain or ornamented stone bowls, medallions and pieces of necklace in turquoise, malachite and other green stones.[7]

Major construction at the site occurred from 2,600 to 1,700 BC.[8]

Agriculture

The following agricultural crops have been documented,

  • corn (Zea mays),
  • beans (Fabacceae),
  • manioc (Manihot esculenta),
  • sweet potato (Ipomooea sp.),
  • Dioscorea sp.,
  • Arrowroot (Maranta sp.),
  • hot peppers (Capsicum sp.),
  • cacao (Theobroma sp.)
  • coca (Erythroxylum coca)[9]

See also

References
  1. area map
  2. area map
  3. Mayo-Chinchipe culture (Spanish) - Proyecto Zamora - Chinchipe
  4. Francisco Valdez (2014), The Mayo Chinchipe-Marañón Culture: Pandora’s Box in the Upper Amazon. Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Studies palanda.arqueo-ecuatoriana.ec
  5. Illustration of objects palanda.arqueo-ecuatoriana.ec
  6. Francisco Valdez (2014), The Mayo Chinchipe-Marañón Culture: Pandora’s Box in the Upper Amazon. Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Studies palanda.arqueo-ecuatoriana.ec
  7. Illustration of objects
  8. Jerry D. Moore, A Prehistory of South America. University Press of Colorado, 2014 ISBN 1492013323
  9. Francisco Valdez (2014), The Mayo Chinchipe-Marañón Culture: Pandora’s Box in the Upper Amazon. Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Studies palanda.arqueo-ecuatoriana.ec

Bibliography

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