Maize Recovered at La Ponga, an Early Ecuadorian Site

Abstract

Recent archaeological excavations at a Machalilla (“Early Formative”) site on Ecuador's south coast have resulted in the recovery of charred maize kernel and cupule fragments. A detailed study of the Machalilla maize described here suggests that two primitive varieties were present on the coast of Ecuador by 1200 B.C. Previously published reports that have attempted to establish the presence of maize during the preceding Valdivia phase are reviewed briefly, and their incompleteness is discussed.

Maize in ancient Ecuador: results of residue analysis of stone tools from the Real Alto site

“…The earliest maize macroremains, for example, date to the Middle Formative Machalilla phase (La Ponga site, 1200-800 BC, uncalibrated, [11]) and subsequent Late Formative Chorrera phase (sites in the Jama River valley, [24]); while microfossil evidence begins in the preceramic Vegas tradition (dated just prior to 5000-4700 BC, uncalibrated, [27,32,37,38]) and continues during the subsequent Valdivia tradition (Real Alto, 4400 to 1800 BC, calibrated, [17]; see also [19][20][21][22]; La Emerenciana, 2200-1900 BC, calibrated, [36]) and into the late Formative and after (see [23] for an overview of paleoethnobotanical data for the region). It is only in late Formative, Chorrera contexts and after, that charred maize remains become somewhat more common at sites, and this is not true of all sites.…”

Directly dated starch residues document early formative maize ( Zea mays L.) in tropical Ecuador

“…Others, however, doubted the evidence and argued that the earliest certain evidence of maize in Ecuador dated to the Middle Formative-no earlier than Ϸ3700 cal B.P. ʈ (9). Later work by Pearsall at Real Alto (OGCH-12) (Fig.…”

Formative Settlement Patterns in the Valdivia Valley, SW Coastal Ecuador

“…Marine foods may have been more important at Salango than in the interior of the Valdivia Valley, but these data do bring us a little closer to correlating greater reliance on maize and seafood with the beginning of the Machalilla period. Studies of Middle Formative macrobotanical remains (Lippi, Bird, and Stemper 1984;Pearsall 1988) indicate that small-kerneled popcorn varieties of maize are notably more frequent in Machalilla contexts than in earlier or succeeding periods, suggesting that Machalilla was a period of change in subsistence systems, including changes in the strategy, role, and importance of maize cultivation. Finally, it is interesting that in a general way, Early Machalilla developments in settlement patterns parallelled and re-enacted those of the Early Valdivia period, in that initial population increase was associated not with dispersal but with concentration in "optimal" zones.…”