Río Chico in the Distant Past of the Pastaza Valley, Ecuador

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the last 50 years, from Amazonian archaeology there has been a remarkable and growing debate about the origin and dispersion of the cultures of the area, their carrying capacity, population number and density, political structure, and links with the adjacent geographical areas, such as the Andes to its western border. More recently, paleobotanical analysis has added complexity to interpretations, yielding unpublished data for the region. This report presents survey and excavation results from the site of Río Chico, located near the city of Puyo, Ecuador. Analysis of the biocultural remains are especially presented, including results in paleodiet and macronutrients showing an important variety of foods. Currently, Río Chico is the oldest multicomponent village-type mound site of the Pastaza drainage, one of the great rivers of the Amazon basin; from the late Formative period to the Integration period, passing through the Regional Development. It is part of a series of monumental sites in the Upper Amazon of Ecuador but is unique in the area with evidence of consumption of certain plants and interregional trade.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37060.0