Cultural implications of neutron activation analysis of ceramics from Palmitopamba, Ecuador

Summary

The cloud forest site of Palmitopamba in northwestern Ecuador was occupied for centuries by the Yumbos prior to the arrival of Incas around 1500. Instrumental neutron activation analysis has been performed on ceramics we have excavated there and which represent those two groups, on a third pottery complex widely identified in Ecuador as Cosanga or Panzaleo, and on raw clay samples from the vicinity of Palmitopamba. The results of some 140 analyses are presented. These imply that the Inca pottery at the site was locally made by Yumbo artisans but that the Cosanga pottery is intrusive. We expand upon these and other interpretations to address the nature of the Palmitopamba site and the anomalous relationship that existed between the Yumbos and Incas in the final years of the Inca Empire at its northern periphery.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Ceramics of the Indigenous Peoples of South America: Studies of Production and Exchange using INAA

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