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Architecture of the Early Valdivia Village

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jonathan E. Damp*
Affiliation:
1911-51 St. NW, Calgary AB, Canada T3B 1C1

Abstract

The architecture of early Valdivia (3300–2300 B.C.) communities provides information about the structure of early village life on the Ecuadorian Pacific coastal lowland. Household units from the sites of Real Alto and Loma Alta seem to exhibit domestic patterning in sleeping areas, cooking, tool working, cotton spinning, garbage disposal, and burial of the dead. The village layout provides a plan for settlement in the shape of a letter U. The Valdivia U-shaped village is briefly examined in its prehistoric context. Together, house and village patterns at Real Alto and Loma Alta reflect the beginnings of settled life in the context of an agricultural economy.

Type
Reports
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1984

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References

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