4600 Year Old Remains of Unknown Ancient South American Culture Discovered

The shards of San Pedro pottery correlate with fragments from Real Alto and other places of archaeological excavations retrieved in the 70s and 80s but attributed to no particular culture. Thus, the researchers received additional arguments to speak about new archaeological culture related to formative period. The one existed and developed simultaneously with Valdivia on the Pacific coast of Ecuador.

‘The mass emergence of pottery was a kind of technical breakthrough associated with many aspects of human life and the level of economic development in different parts of the globe. Ceramic vessels belonging to different cultures developed simultaneously confirm that our ancestors had evolved in terms of cultural diversity. It is curious that, despite the different vectors of human development, in the technological sense we were moving in the same direction.’ Alexander Popov said, Head of the Russian archeological expedition to Ecuador, Director of the Educational and Scientific Museum FEFU of the School of Arts and Humanities of Far Eastern Federal University.

According to the scientist, at the next stage of excavation, the research team will look for additional artifacts of new culture. Such findings may well help to determine conditions for the culture development with more preciseness.

Researchers believe that pottery fragments related to even more archaic time can be found in Ecuador, i.e., the more archaic cultural layer may exist. From that point, one will likely to find out whether pottery was invented in South America at the same time as in the other cultures of the globe or may it probably have been imported. The information will help to comprehend the processes of parallel development of people on the different sides of the Pacific Ocean and, in general, the multi-vector development of human communities.

FEFU researchers seek for common details and local options concerning the development of human civilization on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean — in South America and East Asia. Scientists compare the adaptation of the ancient man to environmental changes that influenced the economic, domestic and other aspects of the population.

Previously FEFU archaeologists in Ecuador have found ancient human remains dating back to 6 to 10 thousand years old. The excavations were carried out in Atahualpa canton, the findings belong to the Las Vegas archeological culture of the Stone Age.

The study was supported by Far Eastern Federal University in cooperation with the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (16K03149, 16KK0020).

Contacts and sources:
Alexander ZverevFar Eastern Federal University (FEFU)

Citation: New data on early pottery traditions in South America: the San Pedro complex, Ecuador
Yoshitaka Kanomata, Jorge Marcos, Alexander Popov, Boris Lazin and Andrey Tabarev
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.56