Manteño-Huancavilca culture
archaeological culture
The Manteño-Huancavilca culture (Spanish: Los Manteños) were one of the last pre-Columbian cultures in modern-day Ecuador, active from 850 to 1600 CE (1150–400 BP). It encompasses the area of the earlier Valdivia culture.
Scope
The term was coined in the mid-20th century by Ecuadorian archeologist Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño, to describe pre-Hispanic settlement near the town of Manta on the Pacific coast. Their historic area has been engulfed in part by more recent settlement.
Soon after Jijón y Caamaño published his findings, the term Manteño began to be applied to several distinct sub-groups: northern Manteño (Manteño del Norte, Sillas, or Manabita), southern Manteño (Huancavilca) and Punáe. Some archaeologists and historians reject this split, however, applying the term Huancavilca to all three groups; this term is of Incan origin, from the time of the first colonisation.
Little work has distinguished such groupings. Historian Cieza de León, however, says that residents in coastal towns north of Salango used a type of facial tattoo distinguishable from those to their south. Other proposed divisions have included coastal and inland areas, based on types of burial and subsistence.
The Manteño chiefdoms – under the broad definition – extended over coastal parts of the present-day provinces of Manabí, Santa Elena and Guayas, including La Plata Island.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Manteño-Huancavilca culture” as archaeological culture. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as archaeological culture. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q961245. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1600 and 1150.
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This entry incorporates text from “Manteño-Huancavilca culture” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.