The Guangala cultural style is associated with the semi-arid southwestern coastal region extending from southern Manabi Province south and inland to the western edge of the Guayas basin. The legacy of the earlier Chorrera tradition is visible in the continuation of iridescent painting on dark, reduced wares. Figurines are common, hinting at aspects of daily life such as costume and body decoration as well as ritual life. The most notable common element on the Guangala figurines is the presence of incised or engraved motifs, which may represent body tattooing or painting (Figure 25.5). Motifs may associate with ethnicity or status, but the figurines do not exhibit the elaborate apparel and adornments found in the coastal styles to the north (Valdez and Veintimilla 1992: 200-201). Therefore these images create a striking contrast with the figurines of the other coastal groups and suggest unique aesthetics or different socio-cultural principles or structures.
Most notable in the Guangala ceramic style is the change to bowls, cups and other complex forms decorated in two or three colors, suggestive of feasting assemblages (Figure 25.6). These vessels are distinct in form and decoration from early Guangala
Figure 25.5. Guangala masculine figurine whistle with engraved body decoration and hammered gold earrings. From the collection of the Museo del Banco Central del Ecuador, Guayaquil. (MBCG No. GA 2-2164-82; photograph from Valdez and Veintimilla 1992: fig. 65).
Figure 25.6. Guangala polychrome bowl with geometric decoration. (Private collection; photograph from Valdez and Veintimilla 1992: fig. 70).
Bowls which continue the Chorrera traditions of smudged vessels with iridescent and pattern burnish designs. Following many of the same arguments used in adjacent areas to infer hierarchy and specialized craft production, the high production cost of these vessels suggests the existence of an elite class and social hierarchy (Stothert 1984). Other supporting lines of evidence that would signal the presence of a hierarchical social structure, however, have not been found (e. g., settlement hierarchy, wealthy burials, figurines showing individuals with symbols of power or status). Most intriguing is evidence from compositional analysis of Guangala fineware bichrome and polychrome ceramics indicating multiple production sites that do not correlate with the site where the pottery was discovered (Masucci 2001). A model of trade might explain this evidence although the occurrence of vessels from the same site with a range of compositions probably suggests the circulation or gifting of festival containers. For example, vessels, which compositionally indicate southern Guayas production, were found at the site of Salango in southern Manabi and the reverse was observed as well (Masucci 2001). The creation of high status goods or the control of luxury items as an aspect of competitive hierarchical societies in the Intermediate Area is well documented (Dren-nan and Uribe 1987) and ethnohistoric evidence from Ecuador demonstrates the association of finely decorated vessels with native nobles (Salomon 1986: 124). However modern groups in the eastern lowlands of Ecuador have a polychrome tradition associated with ritual and gift giving, rather than display of elite status (Whitten 1975).
Settlement studies reveal more of a pattern of dispersed settlements than clear evidence for ceremonial centers with surrounding settlement hierarchy. A pattern of dispersed farmsteads extending inland from the coast and reaching secondary and tertiary tributaries of the primary southern coastal river courses has been described since the earliest investigations and naming of the Guangala Culture by Bushnell (1951). Recent systematic survey has verified this, providing evidence of an expansion of settlement beginning in the Late Formative and continuing until at least AD 600, when the settlement pattern appears to restructure with depopulation in the peripheries and nucleation in wetter inland areas and along the coast at sites that became major ports in the later Integration Period (Masucci 1992; Stothert 1993). During the same period a similar process of settlement expansion inland from the coast is described by Zeidler for the Jama Valley (Zeidler and Pearsall 1994).
The complexity of Guangala social and political organization is not well understood. Stothert (1984) presents Guangala society as moving in the direction of increasing complexity, an “incipient chiefdom”. This is a reasonable conclusion given current evidence although, alternatively, Guangala society can be seen as having a different and less complex trajectory than that of neighboring cultures. For example, there is no convincing evidence for differential access to exotic or valued goods. Early and Middle Guangala Phase settlements throughout the southwest coast share a similar range of non-local goods, including imported marine resources and material culture regardless of site location. These goods include small amounts of copper and gold artifacts and finished obsidian tools. The artifact assemblages typically include small percentages of decorated fineware ceramics, ceramic flutes, ceramic figurines, ceramic spindle whorls and carved shell ornaments (Bushnell 1951; Meggers 1966; Masucci 1992; Stothert 1993). Of the burials recorded, although fine-ware ceramics are sometimes present, the burial goods do not indicate significant wealth, status or differential access. Site contents across the region do not show patterns of site specialization or differentiation. Therefore, in contrast to neighboring groups to the north, the southern coastal inhabitants do not exhibit either complex iconography on figurines, platform constructions, or differential access or accumulation of wealth or luxury goods in burials. There is a tendency to attribute this difference in developments to lower agricultural potential in the semi-arid setting, but the region encompassed by the Guangala style includes wetter zones in the north, that extend to southern Manabi, as well as a range of zones with different agricultural potentials traversing from the coastal interior throughout the region. Therefore, explanations attributing agents with social and political choices seem more realistic than determination by environmental setting.
World History
