Mythologies of the Valdivia Tribe

The Valdivia culture is one of the oldest settled cultures recorded in the Americas. It appeared one thousand years after the Las Vegas culture and thrived along the coast of Santa Elena peninsula in Santa Elena Province of Ecuador between 3500 BCE and 1500 BCE. Remains of the Valdivia culture were discovered in 1956 on the western coast of Ecuador by the Ecuadorian archeologist Emilio Estrada, who continued to study this culture. American archeologists Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers joined him in the early 1960s in studying the type-site. The original excavations were in a small village of Valdivia located well north of Santa Elena peninsula. Valdivia is located about 10km south of the beach resort of Montañita. The Valdivia lived in a community that built its houses in a circle or oval around a central plaza. They were believed to have a relatively egalitarian culture of sedentary people who lived mostly from fishing, though they did some farming and occasionally hunted for deer to supplement their diet. From the archeological remains that have been found, it has been determined that Valdivians cultivated maize, kidney beans, squash, cassava, chili peppers and cotton plants. The latter was processed, spun and woven to make clothing. Valdivian pottery, dated to 2700 BCE, initially was rough and practical, but it became splendid, delicate and large over time. They generally used red and gray colors, and the polished dark red pottery is characteristic of the Valdivia period. In their ceramics and stone works, the Valdivia culture shows a progression from the most simple to much more complicated works. The trademark Valdivia piece is the "Venus" of Valdivia: feminine ceramic figures. The "Venus" of Valdivia likely represented actual people, as each figurine is individual and unique, as expressed in the hairstyles. The figures were made joining two rolls of clay, leaving the lower portion separated as legs and making the body and head from the top portion. The arms were usually very short, and in most cases were bent towards the chest, holding the breasts or under the chin. A display of Valdivian artifacts is located at Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The Valdivia culture is one of the oldest settled cultures recorded in the Americas. It emerged from the earlier Las Vegas culture, and thrived on the Santa Elena peninsula near the modern-day town of Valdivia, Ecuador, between 3500-1800 BCE. The Valdivia lived in a community that built its houses in a circle or oval around a central plaza. They were sedentary, egalitarian people who lived off farming and fishing, and occasional deer hunting. From the remains that have been found, it has been determined that Valdivians cultivated maize, kidney beans, squash, cassava, chili peppers, and cotton plants, the latter of which was used to make clothing. Valdivian pottery, which has been dated to 2700 BCE, was initially rough and practical, but over time became splendid, delicate, and large. Bowls, jars, and female statues were used in daily life and religious ceremonies. They generally used the colors red and gray, and polished dark red pottery is characteristic of the Valdivia period. In their ceramics and stone works, the Valdivia culture showed a progression from the most simple, to much more complicated works. Valdivians were the first Americans to use pottery. The trademark Valdivia pottery piece is the “Venus” of Valdivia: feminine ceramic figures. The “Venus” of Valdivia likely represented actual people; each figurine is individual and unique, as can be seen in the hairstyles. They were made by joining two rolls of clay, leaving the lower portion separated as legs and forming the body and head from the top portion. The arms were usually very short, and in most cases were bent towards the chest, holding the breasts or chin.

An archaeologist, Emilio Estrada, discovered the Valdivia culture in the year 1956 and it has been determined that it is one of the oldest cultures that can be found across the Americas. It was derived from the Las Vegas Culture, and Estrada was able to establish that this culture was alive between the years 3500 and 1800 BC in Ecuador. Archaeological discoveries assisted Estrada in making his determinations through pottery and various other items discovered. When artefacts found on Kyushu Island in Japan were compared to those found in Ecuador, a theory emerged that there was trade between these two communities, however, this theory has not been proven beyond a doubt. The pottery pieces spoken about are unique to the Valdivia culture and were at first made for practicality and were therefore very rough. Their pottery was generally made from gray and red clay, but as the years went on, pottery became a more refined skill. Ceramic works became art pieces with the attention to detail becoming more noticeable. Ceramic figurines, specifically the feminine figurine of Venus of Valdivia, became a trademark pieces. Artisans also became more artistic, creating mortars and bowls, using animals as their inspiration for their designs. Discoveries have shown that communities lived in traditional settlements built in circles, with their homes being constructed on the outskirts of a central plaza. It is believed that each community had their own specific form of agriculture, such as fishing, hunting or crop farming. Farmers were known to produce crops of cassava, maize, squash, hot peppers, corn and kidney beans. Farming with cotton was essential, as the Valdivia would use their cotton to weave clothing items. What became of the Valdivia culture remains a mystery to today, as there is no sign or record of the culture migrating, nor was a definite end to their existence ever found. Most archaeologists and scholars believe that dwindling numbers forced members of the communities to leave their coastal settlement and go in search of a more prosperous life elsewhere. It seems that the Valdivia set off to find a new start and became lost to history in doing so.

Valdivia Culture is the name given to the prehistoric culture that occupied the Pacific coastal lowlands of Ecuador during the Early Formative period (4400–1600 bce). It was identified at the type site of Valdivia in coastal Guayas province by the Ecuadoran Emilio Estrada, and subsequently investigated by the archaeologists Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans in the late 1950s. Valdivia culture was thought by those scholars to represent an egalitarian, semisedentary littoral adaptation based upon fishing and shellfish gathering, with only rudimentary reliance on horticulture. Its unique ceramic style and "Venus" figurine tradition were originally thought to be the earliest in the New World, and their origins were attributed to diffusionary trans-Pacific voyaging by Neolithic Jomon fishermen from Japan. More recent research at other important coastal sites such as San Pablo, Real Alto, and Salango, as well as inland sites such as Loma Alta, Colimes, and San Lorenzo del Mate, has promoted considerable rethinking of the nature of Valdivia Culture, its origins, economic base, settlement organization, and cosmological beliefs. The archaeologist Donald Lathrap has forcefully argued that Valdivia represents a "tropical forest culture" having a fundamentally riverine settlement focus, whose ultimate origins can be traced to early population dispersals from the Amazon Basin. Newer subsistence data indicate a mixed economy of flood plain horticultural production (based on maize, beans, manioc, achira and other root crops, chili pepper, cotton, and gourds), hunting, fishing, and the gathering of wild plants and shellfish. Certain coastal settlements, such as the type site, are viewed as having specialized in the exploitation of maritime and estuarine resources and traded these products for food crops with inland agricultural communities. These studies have shed new light on Valdivia chronology and the pace of social change during its 2,000-year time span. An eight-phase ceramic sequence established by Betsy Hill has permitted a more precise delineation of temporal trends in settlement pattern and internal site layout. Large-scale excavations at village sites such as Real Alto and Loma Alta in Guayas province have permitted detailed reconstruction of Valdivia households, community patterning, social organization, burial practices, and ceremonial behavior, all of which underwent significant changes between phases 1 and 8. As a result, it is now clear that Valdivia represents a dynamic, fully sedentary society of village horticulturalists, characterized by progressive demographic growth, household expansion from nuclear to extended family dwellings, and an increasing degree of social ranking and status inequality through time. Beginning as early as Middle Valdivia times, mortuary evidence suggests the establishment of hereditary social status accorded to senior females. Long-distance maritime trade with the complex societies of coastal Peru at this time may have provided an impetus for social change leading to greater complexity in the later Valdivia phases.

The Valdivian culture, one of the oldest known in the Americas, thrived along the Ecuadorian coast between 3500 and 1800 BCE. They were among the first to create ceramics in the region, leaving behind bowls, vessels, and most intriguingly, figurines—small clay forms that have outlasted the people who made them. They lived in small, circular villages, their homes built around central spaces. Traces of their settlements reveal an early understanding of agriculture, fishing, and communal living. Their dead were buried beneath their homes—a tradition that speaks to a people who did not separate the living from the departed. Most of their figures are thought to depict women, often interpreted as fertility symbols. But some do not fit. Some have two heads, their vision split between realms, past and future. Others have no head at all, their faces pressed into their chests or bellies, as though perception itself had been rearranged. Across the world, stories echo of such beings—recorded, noted, remembered. The Blemmyes, written of by ancient Greeks and medieval explorers, were said to have had no heads, their faces instead resting on their torsos. The Valdivians knew them too. And they left them in clay. A single head sees forward. A second sees back. Some of the Valdivian figures bear two faces, staring in opposite directions—split between realities, between selves. There is something unsettling about them. The symmetry is unnatural, deliberate. Not an accident of the artist’s hand, but a statement carved in form. Shamans of later traditions spoke of walking between worlds, standing in two places at once. Not fully here, not fully there. Was that the message these figures carried? Some heads are fused at the sides, locked in opposition. Others join at the top, as though two beings had become one, no longer separate. A merging, or a battle? A body caught between forces, between the past and the future, between the seen and unseen.

The Valdivia culture, one of the oldest settled cultures recorded in the Americas, emerged from the earlier Las Vegas culture and thrived on the Santa Elena peninsula near the modern-day town of Valdivia, Ecuador between 3500 BCE and 1800 BCE.The Valdivia culture was discovered in 1956 by the Ecuadorian archeologist Emilio Estrada. Based on comparison of archeological remains and pottery styles (specifically, the similarity between the Valdivian pottery and the ancient Jōmon culture on the island of Kyūshū, Japan) Estrada, along with the American archaeologist Betty Meggers suggested that a relationship between the people of Ecuador and the people of Japan existed in ancient times. Part of the theory was that the Japanese had conducted trans-Pacific trade. This theory was controversial, for no evidence of contact between the two populations had previously been suggested, and it remains unsupported within the archaeological community.The Valdivia live in a community that builds its houses in a circle or oval around a central plaza and were sedentary people that lived off farming and fishing, though occasionally they go hunting for deer. From the remains that have been found, it has been determined that Valdivians cultivated maize, kidney beans, squash, cassava, hot peppers and cotton plants, the latter of which was used to make clothing.Valdivian pottery initially was rough and practical, but it became splendid, delicate and large over time. They generally used red and gray colors; and the polished dark red pottery is characteristic of the Valdivia period. In their ceramics and stone works, the Valdivia culture shows a progression from the most simple to much more complicated works.

The Valdivia culture of Ecuador in South America is one of the oldest settled cultures found in the Americas. It has been said that it emerged from an earlier Las Vegas culture found in the same area years before them. The Valdivia culture thrived on the peninsula of Santa Elena near the modern-day town of Valdivia. It has been dated to around 3,500 BC to 1,500 BC. They are claimed to have created the earliest representational images that have been found in the Americas to date. But who were they and what was their culture? The site that Valdivia finds itself on today may have been inhabited since around 12,000 BC according to discoveries that archaeologists have made in Monte Verde, 200km (124 miles) from Valdivia. In a timeline, this would place these peoples before the Clovis culture found in North America, a truly ancient people. These discoveries forced archaeologists to rethink the models of migration to the New World. It is possible that the first inhabitants of Chile and Valdivia traveled to America via watercraft and not through the far north land bridge known as the Bering Strait. By the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century AD, the area known as Valdivia was inhabited by the Huilliches. The Spanish referred to these people as Araucanos. In the present-day downtown area of Valdivia, there was a large village called Ainil. The river nearby was referred to as Ainilebu. Archaeologists suspect that this was the original for the Valdivia River. Ainil seems to have been an important trading town that had great access to the sea and a viable transport network inland using the river system.