Ecuadorian Cultures Existing at the Time of the Jaredites – Part II

Continued from the previous post, regarding the development and historic events in Ecuador at the time of the Jaredites, and later the Nephites.
    In this northward land, the Jaredites both landed and settled, spending some 1500 years or more in the area, never going south into what was known to the Nephites as the Land Southward. However, “the whole face of the land northward was covered with inhabitants” (Ether 10:21), and with animals of the forest (Ether 10:19), and in the final stage of the Jaredite kingdom, “the whole face of the land was covered with the bodies of the dead” (Ether 14:21).

The Santa Elena Peninsula where the strong currents moving up the coast from the south bend outward into the South Pacific Gyre while coastal currents bring flotsam and wind-driven vessels into shore

The early Jaredites, under the direction of Jared and his brother, landed along the west coast about 4100 years ago. In Valdivian history, the Valdiva had trade routes along the Pacific coast and over the cordilleras to Peru and back to the Amazon. The Jaredites, on the other hand, went south of the narrow neck (into Peru) to hunt for game in the preserve they set aside for “a wilderness to get game” (Ether 10:21).
    The benign climate of the Ecuadorian coastal regions provided abundant food supplies and the absence of outside enemies and diseases enabled the Valdivians to stabilize and prosper without interference for millennia. This coincides with the fact that the Jaredites had no outside enemies—none had inhabited the land before their arrival. This is reinforced in the fact that, “after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof… Wherefore, the remnant of the house of Joseph shall be built upon this land; and it shall be a land of their inheritance; and they shall build up a holy city unto the Lord, like unto the Jerusalem of old; and they shall no more be confounded, until the end come when the earth shall pass away” (Ether 13:2,13).
    Thus, in archaeological findings, there was no evidence of any wars or intrusions from other tribes during the Validivian period, a quite different history than most other cultures and civilizations in other parts of the world. From the beginning the Valdivians were oriented to the sea, and being active merchants, the Valdivians were masters of deep-sea navigation. There is substantial evidence that the Valdivians traded with Central America and Southern Mexico via the Galapagos Islands. On land, their trade empire ranged throughout the land, to Northern Ecuador, as well as from the Pacific coast into the deep reaches of the eastern lands, where they traded their maritime goods, such as Spondylus and conches, for non-perishable goods like sodalite and turquoise.

Spondylus regius - Royal or Regal Thorny or Spny Oyster (though they are not oysters); they were known in the Aegean Sea and along the coast of Colombia and Ecuador. They were found as late a the Moche period in Andean art

The Spondylus shell often found as deep as 160 feet in the ocean and most abundant in equatorial waters, was introduced to inland areas since it was the most sought after trade item in America, and was the case in all the Americas until the arrival of the Spaniards in the XV century.
    Direct evidence of this inland trade is difficult to trace, because the main routes and settlements in the valleys of the Andes have been covered several times in the last millennia by eruptions of the more than 80 active volcanoes in northern Ecuador and southern Colombia. For example, villages in the highlands west of Quito were covered twice by a one-meter thick ash flow from the nearby Pululahua volcano in 1500 BC and 450 BC.
    Archeologists have divided the cultural development during the Valdivian history into phases, beginning with their villages along the coastal plateau. The second major phase was in the Valdivians establishing a large number of satellite villages in various parts of Ecuador and apparently in southern Colombia. In the final stage, during the last hundred years of the Valdivias, their way of life changed drastically until they disappeared from the archaeological record.
    The Valdivian civilization distinguished itself in America as being among the first dedicated to agriculture with stable villages and ceremonial centers involving several hundred families, and for establishing trade routes throughout the northern areas. They also created ceramics, which quality equaled the finest in other continents of the same epoch and 1,500 years earlier than in Mesoamerica or Peru; however, they were similar to ceramics that later showed up among the Mayas, Aztecs and Inca.
    As stated earlier, long-time Valdivian researchers are amazed at the anthropological and archaeological claims that the Valdivia had a lengthy history in Ecuador of development similar to other cultures in, reaching back many millennia when, in fact, they claim when the Valdivia arrived, they did not share a common origin and that they simply popped up out of nowhere with capabilities rivaling those of the Old World.
    The Valdivians had advanced techniques in aquaculture, the construction of dams, water channels and complex water reservoirs. A major effort and influence of the Valdivia seems to be based on a cult for water. However, it seems clear among the professionals who work in these areas of ancient Cultures, that the Valdivians were the mother culture of the Americas. There is much evidence to support that their symbolic, pictographic art may have been a proto-writing system. These symbols used systematically by the Valdivians developed into a pictographic writing system, as is evidenced by the stone plates and ceramic bowls of what the anthropologists call the Final Valdivian Phase.

Three other cultures and cultural development in four additional provinces followed the origin of the Valdivian Culture; and the location of the Mayo-Chinchipe Culture in southern Ecuador

According to archaeologists, several other cultures, including the Quitus, Caras, and Cañaris, emerged in other parts of Ecuador. There were other major archaeological sites in the coastal provinces of Manabí and Esmeraldas, as well as in the middle Andean highland provinces of Tungurahua and Chimborazo. The archaeological evidence has established that Ecuador was inhabited for at least 4,500 years. However, great tracts of Ecuador, including almost all of the Oriente remain unknown to archaeologists, a fact that adds credence to the possibility of early human habitation. Scholars have studied the Amazon region recently but the forest is so remote and dense that it takes years for research teams to survey even a small area. Their belief that the river basin had complex cultures is confirmed by the recent discovery in 2002 of the Mayo-Chinchipe Cultural Complex in the Zamora-Chinchipe Province, believed to be the oldest people of the eastern Andes area. The presence of the Strombus and Spondylus sea conch shells found in the eastern slopes, now covered by jungle, shows the people had dealings with those on the coast.
    Ecuador is presently at the heart of the region where a variety of civilizations developed for millennia. During the pre-Inca period people lived in clans, which formed great tribes, and some allied with each other to form powerful confederations, as the Confederation of Quito. But none of these confederations could resist the formidable invasion of the Inca in the 15th century, which was both painful and bloody. However, once occupied by the Quito hosts of Huayna Capac, the Incas developed an extensive administration and began the colonization of the region.

The location of Zamaora-Chinchipe is located along the coast in the province of Manabí, where a complex of accessible ruins have been dated back to two periods—1800 BC to about 1300 BC, and another from 500 BC to about 500 AD

In an area just north of the Santa Elena Peninsula, called today by archaeologists Solango, an ancient coastal development and coral reef island off the coast, was first occupied by the Valdivia culture from 1800 to 1330 BC, and then later by what archaeologists call the Mayo-Chinchipe Culture, which occupied the area from about 500 BC to about 500 AD, where a platform ceremonial center was located and a large structural complex. Archaeological evidence recovered by the Programa de Antropología para el Ecuador at the Salango site on the south coast of the Province of Manabí between 1979 and 1989, emphasized that the need for a full description, analysis and publication was not only desirable but, from social, as well as cultural, scientific and historical perspectives, quite necessary.
    When the first clay walls and tombs of the funerary precinct were discovered in 1982, there was no existing account then published of any excavation of ceremonial architecture of the relevant period for the Ecuadorian western lowlands. Since then, except for the results of the limited work at Salango, the situation has stayed basically unchanged. To this day, little has been done to further the study of this area.
    On the other hand, the dates are basically similar to the Jaredite occupation of this land to the north, and a much later occupation of it by another group, such as the Nephites, that moved into this northern land. This latter culture thrived from about 100 AD onward, during a period of integration of various settlements in which they built better housing that allowed them to improve their living conditions, and in the mountains they also flourished as well as in the eastern regions.