Corn and the Origins of Socio-Political Complexity in Highland Ecuador

The Formative Period in Ecuador is traditionally viewed from the vantage point of the coast - from which a sedentary, agricultural lifeway spread to the highlands. New research at the Santa Ana La Florida (SALF) site, located on the eastern Andean slopes, questions this theory on the origins of socio-political complexity in the Ecuadorian highlands. SALF dates to the Early Formative Period and excavations here have produced the earliest stirrup-spout bottles in the Americas. Recent paleobotanical analysis has recovered maize starch from the interior of these bottles as well as from other artifacts, indicating that people at SALF were growing maize contemporaneously with coastal Formative cultures. These results call into question traditional views on the stimulus for and directionality of complexity into the Ecuadorian Andes and renews interest in earlier theories of an Amazonian tropical forest cultural expansion (influence) as well as the transmission route(s) of maize into South America.