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Insights into the Earliest Formative Period of Coastal Ecuador: New Evidence and Radiocarbon Dates from the Real Alto Site

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2016

Andrey V Tabarev ,
Yoshitaka Kanomata ,
Jorge G Marcos ,
Alexander N Popov  and
Boris V Lazin
Andrey V Tabarev*
Affiliation:
Division of Foreign Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, 17, Lavrentieva Ave., 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia.
Yoshitaka Kanomata
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Department of Archaeology, Tohoku University, Kawauchi 27-1, Aoba ward, Sendai 980-8576, Japan.
Jorge G Marcos
Affiliation:
Neotropical Archaeology, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Campus Gustavo Galindo Velasco, Guayaquil EC-090150, Ecuador.
Alexander N Popov
Affiliation:
Scientific Museum, Fareastern Federal University, 37, Okeansky Ave., 690950 Vladivostok, Russia.
Boris V Lazin
Affiliation:
Scientific Museum, Fareastern Federal University, 37, Okeansky Ave., 690950 Vladivostok, Russia.
*
*Corresponding author. Email: olmec@yandex.ru
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Abstract

One of the most intriguing questions of South American archaeology is the time, place, and origin of the earliest pottery. Since the late 1950s, the earliest pottery has been attributed to the materials of the Early Formative Valdivia culture (5600–3500 BP), coastal Ecuador. Excavations at the Real Alto site conducted in the 1970s and 1980s allowed the rejection of the spectacular “Jomon–Valdivia” hypothesis and established a local origin of the phenomenon. Recent radiocarbon dates from a joint Russian–Japanese–Ecuadorian project at Real Alto open a new page in our knowledge of the transition from pre-ceramic Las Vegas to ceramic Valdivia cultures.

Keywords

EcuadorFormative periodReal Altoearly Valdivia
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 323 - 330
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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