Dra Elizabeth J Corrie.

López Viejo: a Manteño Port of Trade on the Southern Coast of Manabí

Sumarize:

The archaeological site of López Viejo lies on the eastern edge of the modern fishing town of Puerto López, southern Manabí, coastal Ecuador, on the first low spur of land overlooking the bay. Rectangular stone foundation walls characterise the remains of more than a hundred structures dating to the Integration period Manteño culture, the final precolumbian occupation here, and dense surface scatters of occupational debris cover the site. Encroachment of modern housing development eastward from the main town onto the site threatens the integrity and survival of the ancient settlement however, and since 1992, a programme of survey and excavation - formalised into the López Viejo Project - has aimed to gain important information from the site before it is destroyed by the development over the coming years.

López Viejo is one of a group of related sites of Machalilla, Agua Blanca, Puerto López and Salango, distributed in an arc along the coast of southern Manabí, Ecuador. The first European contact with this region probably occurred between 1525 and 1527 during Francisco Pizarros second exploratory expedition along the north west coast of South America. The accounts we are left with from the early chronicles of this period indicate a populous and thriving region, rich in agricultural and coastal resources. We learn of encounters with large numbers of hostile coastal peoples, for example at San Mateo, where several thousand armed warriors are said to have prepared to attack the Spanish ships. And in one short account, reportedly written by Pizarros secretary Xerez, the capture of an indigenous merchant vessel called a balsa is described (Pizarro, 1527 [1964]). Although there is not the space to include the account here, it is well known, and from it we gain our first vivid glimpse of the precolumbian peoples of what is now southern coastal Manabí, a region then referred to as Calangone, and once probably the centre of a thriving maritime traffic in luxury goods and Spondylus shells conducted between the Lambayeque and later the Chimú kingdoms of the Peruvian far north coast, and the west coast of Mexico. The balsa was laden with goods which are described in great detail by the captors of the vessel, and these not only included a wide array of luxury items, including jewellery in gold and silver decorated with semi-precious stones, and brightly coloured, richly decorated clothing, but items such as tiny bells called cascabeles , metal tweezers and small weights for the weighing of gold. These goods were apparently to be traded for shells identified as the red-rimmed clam shell Spondylus princeps , and the vessel was said to have been laden with them. We are told of four towns in the region called Calangone referred to as Calangone, Tusco, Sercapez and Calango, identified as being the modern settlements of Agua Blanca, Machalilla, Puerto López and Salango. Together they formed the Señorío de Calangone under the dominion of one overlord, and apparently controlled the traffic in luxury goods and the exchange of Spondylus referred to above.

Archaeological Investigations at López Viejo

Archaeological investigations at the López Viejo site should be viewed within the general context of archaeological research conducted along the coast of Ecuador since the turn of the century, when Dorsey published the results of fieldwork at Isla La Plata (Dorsey, 1901) and Saville his two volume work on the archaeology of Manabí (Saville, 1907-1910), drawing attention to the antiquity of the archaeological remains around Manta for example. Jijón y Caamaño first formalised the concept of the Manteño League of Merchants, who controlled sea trade along this sector of the coast (Jijon y Caamaño, 1930).

Against this background, the precolumbian settlement at Puerto López has long been known, and was subject to a surface reconnaissance by the Ecuadorean archaeologist Emilio Estrada in 1956 (Estrada, 1962). The Programa de Antropología para el Ecuador later carried out a topographical survey of the site and the surviving visible structures in 1979 (Nurnberg and Estrada Ycaza, 1982), and this was then followed by the excavation of two of the structures. From studies such as these, it is known that the area around the bay in Puerto López has been occupied, probably nearly continuously, since the Early Formative period Valdivia culture, with Machalilla and then Engoroy cultures represented in different sectors of the town.

The present programme of work known as the López Viejo project was initiated in 1992 in collaboration with the then Programa de Antropología para el Ecuador, and its director Presley Norton, and has received funding from organisations such as the British Academy, The Society of Antiquaries of London and Dumbarton Oaks Washington. There have now been three main phases of archaeological fieldwork carried out at López Viejo between 1992 and 1996. The primary objective of the first phase of the work carried out here was to establish the nature of the precolumbian settlement and the reason for the very large surface quantities of occupational debris, including broken pottery, shell and worked shell material, chert and bones scattered across a prominent low mound in an area on the south eastern side of the Manteño occupation. Work commenced with a topographical survey of the southern side of the site carried out in October 1992, followed by a first phase of excavation carried out during 1993, during which two units - A and B - were opened.

The excavation of Unit A determined that there had been at least two main phases of occupation here, commencing in the Late Formative period with structural features including a clay floor with associated post-holes under which the skeleton of a female had been interred. Pottery found from these contexts indicated the coastal Chorrera culture. Succeeding layers of deliberately relaid yellowish natural clays between 0.50m and 0.70m in depth overlay this earliest occupation, associated with various occupational features including floors, post holes and pits. In the eastern end of the unit, a series of complex recut rubbish pits were found to overlay a 4m deep bell-shaped shaft and pit, thought to be a tomb. This feature probably would originally have been intended for a high status burial, but excavation, completed in 1995, revealed that, unusually, it had not actually been finished and used as such.

More than 3,000 special artefacts were found during the course of the first two seasons of excavation here. These included mother-of-pearl shell from the pearl oysters P. mazatlanica and P. sterna, and bird bones worked into a range of partially made, finished and broken decorative ornaments presumed to be for the decoration of clothing and the making of jewellery. Very considerable quantities of pottery sherds were also recovered, including ceramic figurine fragments, decorated spindle whorls and ceramic stamps for the production of stamped designs. In addition to these a whole range of tools for the production of shell and bone ornaments or for the making of decorated clothing was also found, including obsidian blades for the cutting of the shell and bone, tiny chert drills for the drilling of holes in the ornaments, copper tools, copper needles interpreted as being for the production of decorated clothing, tiny copper bells cascabeles small copper tweezers, fish-hooks, and a whole range of large stone tools and objects, such as net weights, manos, and metate fragments and a tiny polished stone weight bored for suspension. Taken together with finds such as these, the results the first phase of fieldwork suggested that the excavated part of the settlement area was once the locus of a Manteño period cottage industry producing ornaments and decorated clothing to supply the long-distance trade referred to and the area of the excavation was the location of a large dispersed basurera or rubbish mound, which contained the majority of the finds described above (Currie 1995 (a); Currie 1995 (b).

A second phase of fieldwork in the same area took place in 1995, and included a geophysical survey using magnetometry and resistivity instruments. The excavation of the 4m deep bell-shaped shaft pit was also concluded this year. The sides and base of this feature were found to have been well-cut and well-prepared, partially lined with clay plastered walls towards the base, and the floor of the feature was well-levelled and measured a regular 3.15m in diameter throughout. The pit sides retained tool marks of a pick-like instrument, and in the upper layers suggested that it had been cut through damp clay deposits which were backfilled before the sides could have dried and cracked. A mound of potting clay in the base of the feature, together with small shaped lumps of prepared clay suggested that the feature was still being plastered when its construction was aborted for reasons we cannot know. However, careful excavation of the shaft pit has provided us with important evidence of the construction of these features, as well as rare and well-preserved organic materials from its succession of clay and ash fills, including carbonised maize cobs, a carbonised maize cake, twine, knotted cords, carbonised seeds, leaf and bark impressions and fragments of preserved wood.

The results of this second phase of fieldwork, taken together with the first, began to suggest an alternative interpretation of the mound, which had been shown to have a very definite construction, and did not seem to be the production of a haphazard dumping of midden materials from surrounding dwellings as previously thought. A platform mound of ceremonial or ritual function was now considered as an alternative interpretation, to be tested with a further season of excavation.

A third phase of fieldwork was therefore undertaken during August and September 1996, and included a detailed topographical survey of the postulated ceremonial mound to allow an accurate reconstruction of the monument. Three further units - C, D and E - were excavated, firstly to determine the cause of the regular patterns of magnetic anomalies found during the course of the 1995 geophysical survey here and secondly to investigate more fully the nature of the monuments construction.

Units C and E were each found to contain a shaft grave similar to that excavated in Trench A in 1993 and 1995. The shaft in unit C was excavated to a total depth of nearly 3 metres below ground level and was found to contain the remains of more than fourteen individuals interred in a hitherto unrecorded mixed burial practice of both primary and secondary, cremated and non-cremated interments, grouped closely together with associated burial offerings. Removal of these revealed a concentration of more bones beneath, in what was apparently a concentrated charnel-house type practice.

Given the great complexity of the contexts and the large number of burials encountered in Unit C, it regrettably proved impossible to conclude the excavation here given the shortage of time, and the shaft therefore had to be backfilled at this level.

Another shaft grave was found in Unit E very late in the field season, and was excavated to its first primary clay cap at approximately 1.5 metres below ground level, before it, too, was backfilled owing to lack of time, and at a level too high for any burials to have been found.

Excavation to sterile natural was completed in Unit D, where very good structural data for the monument were found, consisting of several superimposed layers of redeposited yellow natural clay, similar to those found in Unit A to south, underlying approximately 0.5m of the fine ashy silt deposits found throughout the site. Of considerable interest in this unit were two hour-glass-shaped double-chambered clay ovens, which formed a line with a third found in the northern profile of Unit A in 1993. These ovens were clearly the cause of the large magnetic anomaly in this area. The oven found towards the centre of the unit, appeared to have been deliberately infilled after use, and the fills contained a number of artefacts believed to have been deposited as offerings, including a necklace of worked bone beads, a stone figurine shaped like a whale tooth and decorated with incised designs, and a whole Spondylus princeps valve. The ovens are believed to have been used during ritual practices associated with the use of the shaft graves, whose fills contain very high percentages of burned material. Given the known presence of at least three shaft graves in an area no greater than 50 square metres, and many more magnetic anomalies in a very regular distribution across the mound in semi-circular arcs, it is believed that there are other shaft graves and associated ovens distributed throughout the monument.

General Description of Contexts

In units A, C, D and E, the contexts were found to be broadly similar, consisting of up to 0.6 metres of ash and silty sediment representing the upper so-called midden layers, consisting of varying proportions of clayey silt with ash, occasionally separated one from the other by thin strata of well-compacted pale brown or yellowish brown clay. These midden contexts were all very heterogeneous in structure, and included frequent lenses of nearly pure ash, ranging from nearly white to nearly black, which are nearly always associated with large quantities of sea urchin spines and small fish bones. High frequencies of all classes of cultural materials characterise these midden contexts, consisting of large quantities of broken pottery, marine shell - particularly the mother-of-pearl oysters Pinctada mazatlanica and Pteria sterna, and Spondylus ssp. - fish bones, chert cores, flakes and debitage. The midden contexts also contain the majority of the special artefacts of which around 8,000 in total were found during the course of the excavations, many of them being small Spondylus shell beads referred to as chaquira .

The deposition of these upper strata of midden materials is very consistent, forming regular narrow horizontal horizons, and the whole suggests a deliberate dumping strategy, possibly serving to augment the height of the mound overlying the base layers of relaid natural yellow clay.

The midden contexts overlie the second main group of contexts, conforming to the structural deposits of the postulated platform. These are constructed of a number of superimposed layers of relaid natural yellow clay and gravel, interposed with darker grey compacted ashy silt material. A superficial capping consisting of about 3-5 cms of very hardened pale brown clay uniformly overlay the matrix of very soft, loose ashy sediments of the midden deposits in each unit, and this served to consolidate these very soft materials which otherwise would have certainly been eroded away from the mound surface across the course of time.

The Shaft Graves of Units C and E

The finding of two more deep cut features consistent with the interpretation of Manteño bell-shaped shaft graves was felt to be both unusual and highly significant. Overall, three of these rare funerary monuments have now been found within a 50 square metre area, including the unfinished (or unutilised) tomb located at the east end of Trench A. Given the disposition and a better understanding of the topography of the platform, it is now believed that several more of these features are located in the immediate vicinity.

The construction and fills of these features are essentially very similar to one another. They consist of quite a narrow semi-circular aperture of some 1.5m diameter, which continues down with straight and regular cut sides for about 1.5m before opening out in the classic bell-shape towards their base. The fills consist of a series of deposits of nearly pure ash alternating with yellowish clay and gravel and blocks of indurated potters clay. Within these fills, particularly within the ash fills, is found large quantities of large fragments of Manteño blackware pottery, usually of fine bowl, bottle or compotera forms. Other finds include spindle whorls, copper tools including several needles, figurine fragments and occasionally very fine ornaments of worked pearl shell or bone, interpreted as an intent to discard, possibly ceremonially, offerings, including deliberately broken pottery, into the different stages of the filling process.

The cut sides of these features are particularly curiously treated, and seem to have the natural clay interleaved with ash and yellowish clay lining the cut sides, possibly for reinforcement. During the excavation of these features it is therefore very difficult to find the actual cut itself, given the effective use of relaid natural. The excavation of the upper part of the cut to the shaft in E clearly showed how up to four basic contextual types: dark brown natural clay, yellowish clay with gravel, potters clay and ash had been interleaved to line the sides in a regular ring, forming two interlinked circular contexts of around 20 - 30cm wide. Within this outer ring lay contexts of nearly pure ash, alternating with clay and gravel and harder compacted clay. The ashy fills usually have a very high proportion of cultural material contained in them, much as the midden contexts do.

The shaft grave in Unit C consisted of a well-defined upper group of contexts of dark grey ash and clayey silt, apparently falling into the uppermost depression of the cut, as though caused by the subsidence or settling of the lower fills. Below this, at the junction of a dark grey ash fill and the first hardened potters clay context, a crouched inhumation of what is believed to be a young adult male was found, with no grave goods. Clay and ash fills succeeded this internment to a depth of some 2.80m below ground level, when the first of a series of up to 13 human remains were encountered, lying with two basic contextual types: soft grey and occasionally blackened sediment and indurated potters clay.

The Human Remains

The remains of at least thirteen individuals were encountered in the C shaft at a depth of 2.80m below ground level. Unusually, they comprised both burned and unburned bodies lying together, and of these, although the majority were disarticulated and stacked in groups, at least one was placed as though originally articulated and burned in situ. Another disarticulated skeleton had the long bones carefully stacked above the torso, and this had also been burned in situ . This interment was believed to be that of an adult female, as it produced the burned fragments of a very young infant, or fetus, located approximately in the centre of the torso area, and a stylised female figurine was found next to it. Yet another group of unburned bones produced the worn deciduous teeth of a juvenile. The crania of these individuals line the sides of the cut at regular intervals, although it is not possible to relate them with any confidence to any of the individual bone groups.

The majority of the human remains were in a poor condition, particularly the unburned ones and strongly suggest the practice of secondary interment, either having been exposed for a long period of time before burial, or possibly disturbed from a primary burial and re-interred. The only primary burials were that of the fully articulated flexed body from the upper pit fills, and possibly one of the burned bodies referred to above, which was semi-articulated.

Grave goods associated with the burials at the lower level include two Manteño black and grey ware bottles, a ceramic disc and the stylised female figurine found with the burned remains of the adult female and infant.

Removal of 5 of the interments from their burial contexts revealed the existence of more human remains lying directly beneath these, suggesting a very concentrated charnel house burial practice of many individuals grouped closely together. The unutilised shaft grave in Trench A had a total depth of just over 4m below ground level. Given the depth of the first burials encountered at 2.80m below ground level, when the sides of the shaft had just commenced opening out into their classic bell shape, it is thought highly probable that many more human remains will be contained within the chamber, when it has been fully excavated.

Unfortunately the excavation of neither shaft graves was finished, owing to the extreme complexity of their structures and contexts, and the sheer number and complexity of the interments in C. It is proposed to conclude their excavation in a planned fourth season of excavation in 1997.

The Finds

Many fine artefacts, particularly of worked mother-of-pearl shell, were found during excavations at López Viejo between 1993 and 1996. It is significant that many of these artefacts closely parallel details of the goods described in the Xerezs account of the capture of the indigenous balsa trading vessel from this region and include a wide variety of ornaments made from mother-of-pearl, copper objects such as the tiny bells, tweezers, needles thought to be used in the production of embroidered clothing referred to above, as well as other small copper tools. The small stone weight found is reminiscent of the description of those found amongst the goods carried aboard the captured balsa . In addition, large quantities of pottery, marine shell and shell artefacts, fish, bird and mammalian bones and bone artefacts, chert, obsidian and large basaltic stone artefacts (net weights, hammer stones, manos and metate fragments) were also found. Although no new classes of special artefacts to those found in 1993 were discovered, the actual proportions proved to be rather different, and moreover it should be noted that Trench A, measuring 5 x 3 metres - some 15 square metres - produced slightly over 2,000 special artefacts, whilst the three trenches C, D and E, with an overall dimension of 14.5 square metres together produced over twice as many .

In 1993 the artefact record was dominated by mother-of-pearl ornaments, particularly shell discs, cut and polished tubular bone spacer beads, tubular ceramic beads and also chert drills. In 1996, many more Spondylus beads were found, the majority of them deriving from Trench E's ash fills and overall there were fewer mother-of-pearl shell figures or ornaments such as the pierced rectangular or triangular shell plaques. The occasional rectangular shell plaque was found, but no pierced shell triangles - an important group from Trench A in 1993. There appeared to be an association between artefact type and unit. Trench D produced large numbers of small shell beads, both white shell and red Spondylus, as well as some obsidian and the occasional copper tool, including a needle and fish hooks. Trench E produced the largest quantity of shell beads, many of them red Spondylus beads, and mostly of minute dimension. Trench C produced many of the copper artefacts - including most of the needles, the tiny copper 'cascabeles' , and spindle whorls. The pit fills of C also produced copper tools, most of the ceramic figurines, and the occasional fine worked mother-of-pearl ornaments, such as the special k pierced plaques - what is believed to represent a stylised Manteño ceremonial seat ( like a 'K' on its back), such as the stone seats found at Agua Blanca.

Discussion

The three phases of fieldwork at López Viejo have been important in building our knowledge and understanding of the Manteño settlement at López Viejo, and the burial practices of the associated community. It has also served to shed much light on the whole decorative ornament industry focused at this settlement during the Integration Manteño period.

Following the first phase of excavations carried out here in 1993, this area was thought to contain refuse mounds of one or more workshops of the decorative ornament cottage industry thought to have surrounded the area. This may still be partially the case, but there is now good evidence to suggest the whole area contains the eroded remains of a large ceremonial structure, consisting of a composite of primary layers of yellow relaid natural clay, augmented by deliberately dumped midden materials, and sealed with a hard capping of clay. This structure covers at least three deep bell-shaped funerary monuments, and probably several more, whose location here conforms with a ritual interpretation for this whole area.

The sheer quantity and range of special artefacts concentrated in the midden deposits of a relatively small area here also supports the notion of a ritual or ceremonial significance for the mound, as though the inhabitants responsible for this area deliberately included large numbers of the whole range of artefacts associated with their industry, as though in a ritual or sacrificial act. The majority of the discards are not actually damaged items, although these also occur, as do unfinished pieces.

Given the large quantity of ash and burned material within the different contexts, and particularly within the shaft fills, including carbonised corn cobs, the presence of the row of three small double ovens within contexts related to those containing the shaft cuts is thought to be significant. The large magnetic anomaly over the centre of Trench D and that to the north west of Trench A almost certainly reflect the presence of the ovens here, and therefore one may suggest with reasonable certainty that more of these ovens exist in regular pattern along the crest of the structure, given the patterning of the magnetic anomalies here. Given the presence of the three shaft graves encircling the central high point of the mound, together with the suggestion of more clay ovens, one may also postulate the presence of additional shaft graves in the area too.

Although it is well known that precolumbian peoples throughout Middle and South America constructed shaft graves for the interment of high status individuals, including people of the Manteño culture whose burial practices were recorded by Cieza de Leon (1864), it should be noted that the burial practices found here at López Viejo are unusual. Burials within shaft and chamber tombs do occur, and a common burial practice is interment of bones inside stacked burial urns within single pits or shafts. The presence of several deep bell-shaped shaft graves close together, and the burial practices found within the shaft grave in Trench C, of multiple interments of burned and unburned primary and secondary interments has never before been formally recorded, although there are apparently uncorroborated reports from huaceros that such have been found (and destroyed) by them.

Sercapez: a Manteño port of trade

It is the long-term objective of the project to investigate the possible role of López Viejo - believed to be Sercapez of the chronicles - in the supply-side of the long-distance trade in luxury goods and in the confederation of towns referred to as Calangone. The data from three seasons of excavation at the site bear witness to the presence here of a thriving industry in the production of a range of decorative ornaments and probably also decorated cloth, and their tools of production, and include the finding of items described in the capture of the merchant balsa by Bartolomeo Ruiz, pilot to Francisco Pizarro. The existence of more than a hundred large structures with stone foundation walls organised along street lines and around plazas, with the additional new evidence suggesting ceremonial activity and high status burials supports the interpretation of a township of some importance. The size of the site and the scale of the industry believed to be represented here, together with its location in a sheltered bay suggests to us that it was probably both a centre of craft production as well as an actual port of trade from which finished goods were despatched. The antiquity of the industry located here and its development through time is one of the questions that future research at the site hopes to address.

A fourth season of excavation at López Viejo is due to commence in July 1997, together with post-excavation analysis of finds from previous phases of fieldwork. It is hoped that further research will continue to throw light on outstanding questions of the nature of the settlement, society and economy at López Viejo.

The excavations at López Viejo have provided us with an illuminating view of a thriving precolumbian settlement, port of trade and centre of craft production whose activities were brought to an untimely end by the arrival of the Spanish here in the sixteenth century. The encounter with the merchant balsa described in the Xerez extract, whilst providing us with a unique historical account of this society of Manteño merchant traders, also sadly marked the end of a long and a remarkable period of maritime long-distance exchange in exotic goods which plied the north west coast of South America until the end of the sixteenth century.

Acknowledgements

The first phase of fieldwork at López Viejo from 1992 - 1993 was funded through a Fellowship with the Leverhulme Trust, England. Subsequent work at the site has been funded through grants from Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, The Society of Antiquaries of London and the British Academy, London. I am most grateful to these institutions for their generous support of this programme of research. The 1995 geophysical survey of the site was carried out by Dr Armin Schmidt of the Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, England, and I am very grateful to him, and to the Department, for their work at the site.

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