The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Barbacoan populations resided throughout Ecuador and southwestern Colombia during the Spanish conquest of the northern Andes. The Barbacoan World was a cultural matrix of comparable mortuary traditions (shaft tombs and burial mounds), monumental platform mounds, land-use strategies, statuary corpuses, rock art, ceramic forms, iconography, and more. There were extensive market economies with interregional exchange systems that connected the highlands, Pacific coast, and Upper Amazon. These societies demonstrated various adaptive responses to a period of increased volcanic activity emblematically characterized by the eruption of the Quilotoa volcano around AD 1280, which covered much of Ecuador in ashfall, marked the climatic transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice Age, and arguably led to several ethnogeneses through social reorganization. Several Barbacoan societies were colonized during the Inka Empire’s northern expansion, but many of their cultural practices and languages survived into early Spanish colonialism, after which some highland Barbacoan languages were gradually replaced by Quechua. Today, only several societies still speak Barbacoan languages and maintain their respective traditions: the Chachi, Tsáchila, Áwa Pit/Kwaiker, Misak, and Totoró. The aim of this session is to recognize and preserve the unique cultural articulations and histories of Barbacoan societies, their neighbors, and their predecessors.

Other Keywords
Ethnohistory/History • Andes: Late Horizon • Andes: Late Intermediate • Survey • Intermediate Area • Identity/Ethnicity • Political economy • Geoarchaeology • Migration • Zooarchaeology

Geographic Keywords
Republic of Panama (Country) • Republic of Colombia (Country) • Netherlands Antilles (Country) • Aruba (Country) • Republic of Ecuador (Country) • South America (Continent) • Republic of Peru (Country) • Republic of Chile (Country) • South America: Andes • Department of Martinique (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-14 of 14)

  • Documents (14)
Documents
  • A Biography of the Yumbos (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Lippi.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Yumbos, Barbacoan peoples of the western flank of the Andes in northern Ecuador’s Pichincha province, have been the principal object of my studies for the past four decades. I draw upon archaeological research by myself and my team (especially including Alejandra...

  • Carved between Cartafuel and Coangue: Spatial Analysis of the Pasto Rock Art Sites of Carchi, Ecuador (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Argoti Gómez.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the social context of Andean prehispanic societies, petroglyphs constitute multivocal elements that stand out from the aggregates of material expressions of culture. As such, their condition as a cumulative of symbolic particularities and their contextualization in the...

  • Diferenciación social y económica en la comunidad prehispánica de Moscopán, suroccidente de Colombia (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hernando Giraldo Tenorio. Marcela Benavides Imbachi.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recientes investigaciones arqueológicas sobre las unidades políticas prehispánicas del suroccidente colombiano resaltan que las desigualdades sociales no fueron el resultado del control diferencial en la producción de ciertos bienes ni en la acumulación de riqueza por parte...

  • El cacicazgo en la experiencia de los Caranquis-Cayambis en la Sierra y en Daule, costa del Ecuador: Una aproximación desde la etnohistoria y la arqueología (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only José Echeverría-Almeida.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En la sierra norte del Ecuador, la cosmovisión andina, la geografía con su mosaico de nichos ecológicos, diversidad de recursos, y la necesidad de una seguridad social y alimentaria, exigió un sistema de gobierno práctico y muy visible, para resolver los problemas ecológicos...

  • El Maya de los Sindagua y el Awá-Pitt contemporáneo (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Marta Herrera. Juan Camilo Niño.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En la literatura sobre los Sindagua producida en los siglos XX y XXI es un lugar común hablar sobre su exterminio a principios del siglo XVII. Sin embargo, es difícil sustentar esta aproximación al analizar las cifras que figuran en visitas y cuentas de tributarios de la...

  • Fase Quilca: Nuevos aportes para el conocimiento cronológico del Sector de Yachay, Sector de Urcuquí, Provincia de Imbabura, Ecuador (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Camino.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Los estudios arqueológicos realizados a lo largo de 7 años en La Ciudad del Conocimiento “Yachay”, permitieron reinterpretar y redefinir a los realizados por Jijón y Caamaño (1914, 1920) y Porras (1987), quienes identificaron una ocupación que se desarrolló en el sector y...

  • Karanki Monuments of Northern Highland Ecuador: A Cultural History in Peril (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Athens.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The inter-Andean landscape of northern highlands Ecuador, including the western upper montaña region, is dotted with clusters of large earthen mounds, many of monumental proportions that reach over 100 m on a side, 15 m in elevation, and have long ramps extending 150 m or...

  • La Ocupación Barbacoa de la Sierra Norte del Ecuador: Una revisión de la evidencia toponímica (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jorge Gomez Rendon.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La única evidencia lingüística disponible de los idiomas que se hablaron en la Sierra norte del Ecuador en los albores de la conquista inca se encuentra en la toponimia no-kichwa ampliamente dispersa en la región. Durante la primera mitad del siglo XX investigadores como...

  • Los camélidos en el Ecuador: Estudio arqueo faunístico y etnográfico (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ibis Mery.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El tema zooarqueológico en el Ecuador sobre los camélidos es muy escaso especialmente en la región, solo algunos sitios reportan dicha especie, especialmente en la Sierra Norte, donde su presencia no es significativa, se presenta como un elemento especial o escaso. Nuestra...

  • Monumental Manipulations: Varied Inka Colonial Tactics of Spiritual Embedment among Cara Ritual Centers of Northern Ecuador (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Hechler.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tawantinsuyu’s consolidation of northern Ecuador was characterized by unique moments of conquest, and reconquest, of the incredibly resistant Cara people. The principal Cara polities were the Cochasquí, Cayambe, Caranquí, Otavalo, and Quinche, each with monumental ritual...

  • The Once and Future Sindaguas of Barbacoas: A Reflection (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kris Lane.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper revisits frontier wars in southwest Colombia in the first half of the seventeenth century. Some debate has arisen regarding a bellicose Barbacoan group known as Sindaguas. Were they a long-established people or "nation" as their Creole-Hispanic conquerors claimed,...

  • The Puruwá Border: Archaeological Footprints and Ancestorship in Tungurahua and Chimborazo, Ecuador (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Josefina Vasquez Pazmino.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Who are the descendants of the ancient Puruwá? Archaeological settlements located in the central highlands of Ecuador, share certain features which researchers used to interpret as the materiality of ethnohistoric Puruwá. Human figures and heads manufactured in ceramics with...

  • Raised Field Nutrient Cycling: Implications for Hydrologic Controls and Landesque Capital (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Will Pratt. Gregory Knapp.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning around AD 600, the Barbacoan speaking peoples of the northern Ecuadorian highlands began building alternating ridge and canal raised field systems. One of the leading hypothesized functions of these raised fields is their role in nutrient cycling. In this scenario,...

  • A Tenuous Prize: Archaeology of the Inka Conquest of Northern Highland Ecuador (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Brown. Mark Willis.

    This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The numerous Inka forts in northern highland Ecuador, more than reported from most other imperial provinces, suggest preoccupations with the region and its inhabitants. The Barbacoan-speaking locals were indeed powerful and a potentially difficult conquest, as attested to by...