Upano, an Anthropized Valley in the Upper Amazon

Summary

Sangay, Ecuador, is probably the most prestigious and impressive site in Amazonia. It is indeed an immense establishment regrouping dozens complexes of artificial earthmounds and a network of endless paths dug along the edge of a terrace of the left bank the Upano. Many archaeological sites have been found in this narrow and straight Upano Valley has been modified over tens of kilometers in length by the pre-Columbian, but few of them have been excavated. Does this multitude of interconnected sites correspond to a central power or a swarm of small local chiefs? This presentation will show the main types of monumental modifications, their chronology from the Formative period to the European conquest and the assumptions that can be made on the pre-Columbian societies that carried out these earthworks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21232