Early Ceremonial Hearth Use in the Upper Amazon: Santa Anna–La Florida, Palanda, Ecuador

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Illuminated Communities: The Role of the Hearth at the Beginning of Andean Civilization" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

One of the outstanding traits of the Mayo Chinchipe – Marañón culture is the spiral architecture that appears on the mound terraces of at least two major sites of the upper Amazon. In one of them, the vortex of the spiral was a ceremonial hearth that contained a votive cache in its base. The offerings found within were probably status symbols of a former officiant. The care taken in the construction of the hearth implies its importance. The hearth seems to have been an altar, or a cleansing feature, located in the center of a structure that could have been called a temple. Although no organic remains were clearly identified among the ashes, we can assume that the hearth served as a privileged medium for communication between the forces of the cosmological / ideological universe. Other hearths have been found in others contexts on the site and a comparison of the features and their characteristics suggests the special function it performed in Santa Ana-La Florida some 4000 years ago.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Illuminated Communities: The Role of the Hearth at the Beginning of Andean Civilization   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24142