Saville’s second expedition in 1907 explored and excavated on the hilltop sites in the vicinity of Picoaza from which the Manteno stone sculpture was said to have come. He devoted most of his efforts to exploration of Cerro Jaboncillo and his published account and unpublished field notes permit an attempt to reconstruct the original architectural contexts and structure by structure provenience for stone seats, stelae and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculpture (Figure 26.3). This affirms the essential relatedness of the whole sculptural corpus and underscores the special character of this site, which seems to have entailed seasonal initiation and fertility ceremonies. The distribution of the stone seats as a distinct tradition is confined geographically to what is now part of southern Manabi province (Figure 26.4) and together with the distribution of Manteno ceramics confers an identifiable coherence on the Manteno confederation as a distinct political, economic and ethnic identity.
On nearby flat hill-top of Cerro de Hojas the party found foundations of stone wall structures of different sizes locally known as corrales. “And on the slopes, level terraces
Have been made, each of which has a house containing one or more rooms.....and on
Many slopes the terraces are one below the other, resembling an enormous flight of huge
Figure 26.3. Reconstruction of distribution of stone seats and stelae on Cerro Jaboncillo based on published descriptions and unpublished fieldnotes of Mashall H. Saville. (Colin McEwan)
Steps” (Saville 1907: 21). The largest structure measured 49 m long and 12.5 m wide; there was no evidence of interior walls, it being a single room, with the northern end open. “In these same houses were also found stone columns, figures of men, and certain curious sculptures” (Saville 1907: 22). Between the northern slopes of Cerro Bravo and the northwestern base of Cerro de Hojas, Saville reports finding house sites with thousands of
Figure 26.4. Principal Manteno senorios and sites with stone seats. (Colin McEwan)
Clay spindle-whorls, probably evidence of specialized weaving and textile production on a substantial scale.