Betty Meggers’ (1966: 113-114) early efforts at synthesizing developments following the Late Formative Chorrera horizon posited two general groupings of regional developments. The first encompassed the southern coastal region, Guayas basin and southern highlands. The local phase names are Guangala, Tejar, Daule, Jambeli, Challuabamba and Tunca-huan, which included most of the area of earlier Chorrera remains. This area was described as lacking key indicators of the development of social stratification. In contrast, the central and northern coastal phases, which include Bahia, Jama-Coaque and Tiaone-Tolita, exhibited stronger evidence of social stratification based on differences in dress, elaborate headdresses and body ornamentation on figurines, regional centers with urban character at the head of settlement hierarchies and ritual or high status structures placed on platform constructions with ramps or staircases (Meggers1966: 115).
Archaeologists still reference six primary regional phases or styles for the coast during the Regional Developmental Period now dated variably to between 500/200 BC and AD 600/800. These are from north to south: Tolita-Tumaco and Tiaone of Esmeraldas Province; Jama-Coaque I and II of northern Manabi and Esmeraldas provinces; Bahia of central Man-abi; Guangala of southern Manabi and coastal Guayas Province; Tejar-Daule of the Guayas river basin; and Jambeli of El Oro Province (Figure 25.1). The original phase names identified florescence in regional art styles and marked changes in material culture as well as, in some cases, sociopolitical organization. More recent research has not significantly altered this assessment, although the tendency to concentrate exclusively on areas with evidence of increasing social and political complexity is waning. This opens the field for the development of new models for understanding the diversity of developments throughout Ecuador during this dynamic period of social transformations rather than focusing our research primarily on those that seem to follow a stage model of societal developments.
Disunion, for example, has been suggested by Lavallee (1992: 9) as an alternative term for the regionalization observed in Ecuadorian societies following the Formative. This concept is then contrasted with union or unification, which is characteristic of the subsequent coastal and highland societies of the Integration Period (Lavallee 1992: 9). This alternative terminology forces us to examine more internal or regionalized phenomena, which may have led to a process of development and socio-political change. This contrasts sharply with earlier models placing interaction, interregional competition and control of long-distance trade as central causal factors. The evidence from recent work suggests that local social, political and environmental settings may provide better answers for understanding the developments in each area as well as the variations in developments between adjacent regions. This shifts attention to the unique elements and characteristics of regional systems rather than on a stage of development achieved or not achieved in
Different regions. The following discussion will focus on areas with significant amounts of available data, which have led to interpretations of the development of early regional polities in coastal Ecuador.
World History
