The Puruwá Border: Archaeological Footprints and Ancestorship in Tungurahua and Chimborazo, Ecuador

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Who are the descendants of the ancient Puruwá? Archaeological settlements located in the central highlands of Ecuador, share certain features which researchers used to interpret as the materiality of ethnohistoric Puruwá. Human figures and heads manufactured in ceramics with profuse decorated faces and adorned in jewelry, copper ornaments, necklaces, beads made of shells, including Spondylus, and quartz appeared in individual tombstones. In addition, and recurrently, fine Cosanga-Píllaro vessels form part of the funerary pottery found in Puruwá sites. New evidence of such settlements in Puculpala, Colta, Patate Urcu, Píllaro, and Salasaka not only shows earlier occupation, but also continuous land use from the Formative to present times. Artifacts as well as environmental transformations are the footprints which lead to understanding the ancestorship of Tungurahua and Chimborazo native descendants.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41541.0