Results of Survey and Analysis of Manteño Archaeological Sites with Stone Structures in the Las Tusas River Valley, Rio Blanco, Ecuador

Summary

The Manteño (1500 BP–1532) of coastal Ecuador are known for their long distance maritime trade networks along the Pacific coast of the Americas; they occupied a large territory that was geographically and environmentally diverse. This diversity allowed the Manteños to exploit a multitude of resources from each unique environment resulting in distinct settlement patterns for each region. One of the least known of these occupied environments and the focus of this paper is the cloud forest of the coastal mountain chain of Chongón-Colonche. The cloud forest offers a plethora of resources and a multitude of challenges. A two field season intensive survey of the Las Tusas river valley focused on Manteño archaeological sites with structures resulted on forty-six structures across ten sites. Structures were identified by the remaining stone foundations that are primarily still visible on the surface. The survey was conducted by the Florida Atlantic University Archaeological Fieldschool in Ecuador during the summers of 2015 and 2016. The significant number of structures in a terrain that offers very limited space for occupation suggests that the Manteño did not only occupied the extent of the territory but thrived in this challenging environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Northern South America II: Mobility, Landscapes, and Socialscapes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17168