Traces Behind the Esmeraldas Shore

7. La Tolitah Aftermath: Herradura, Las Cruces, and Mysterious Mina

7 LA TOLITA'! AFTERMATH Herradura, Las Cruces, and Mysterious Mina To understand a sequel is difficult ifwhat it follows is very incompletely known. Yet that is the task here. To preface, let me review what is known and not known about what came before. We do know that La Tolita was a large site with impressive mounds, some of which had a mortuary function. Despite centuries of systematic looting, La Tolita continues to yield goldwork, imported obsidian, fancy pottery, and a riot oficonographically rich figurines. Thanks to the efforts of Valdez and his associates, La Tolita's heyday can now be dated to the period from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 300. This period spans the Selva Alegre phase and at least the early part of the Guadual phase in La Tolitas upstream hinterland. During this time, we know that settlements shifted to the Santiago and Cayapas mainstreams, but whether this shift was related to the magnetlike effect of La Tolita or to other processes is unclear. We know that major changes in ceramics took place while La Tolita reigned as the premier regional center. Whether viewed as replacements intruding or welcomed from elsewhere or as local innovations, these changes suggest that the Santiago-Cayapas landscape during La Tolita's heyday was a mercurial and experimental place in which nascent or partially achieved rearrangements of the traditional social fabric fostered new material expressions. One such expression was the compotera that redesigned that most basic of activities-the serving of food. What is not known is more impressive. We do not know the nature of La Tolita itself. Was it indeed a metropolis with a sizable resident population? Or was it a ceremonial center where population aggregations were but periodic and short-lived? Was it the entrepot linking a dependent and provincial SantiagoCayapas hinterland with the wonders of the outside Pacific world? Or was it primarily a meganecropolis where regional elites from Tumaco and the SantiagoCayapas were hurried to be buried (Bouchard 1991)? Was RlOII an integral part of the La Tolita settlement system, or did its rise relate to the demise of La Tolita? With the present evidence, it is impossible to select from these not totally contradictory scenarios. This interpretive impasse is likely to persist until we learn more about the nature and internal history of La Tolita. Whatever the workings of the La Tolita world, we can go on to observe that its sequel in the Santiago and Cayapas basins was structured in a markedly different way, in terms of both ceramic and settlement patterns. In contrast to Selva Alegre and Guadual ceramics, which are relatively uniform across both basins, the derivative ceramics of the follOwing period tend to become balkanized with one phase (Herradura) centering in the Cayapas basin, another (Las Cruces) in the LA TOLlTA'1 AFTERMATH 111 rJ @ ... ::l o .... c: o () E () o 1)1 LA TOLlTA'S AFTERMATH Santiago basin. In contrast to the Guadual penchant for the mainstream, both Herradura and Las Cruces settlements withdraw to navigable secondary drainages and to the interfluves. Obsidian decreases in abundance, and there is a general decline in the ceramic arts. To document these changes, we begin in the Cayapas basin. The Herradura Phase The Herradura phase is named after the Chachi community of Herradura located on a peninsula of high ground defined by a horseshoe bend in the Zapallo Grande. Much ofthe modem community is underlain by an archaeological midden in which excavations first identified the distinctive ceramics of the phase. These excavations center on the cancha, or soccer field, and include a trench and a number of 2 x 2 m units (fig. 7.1). These units were placed to intersect several of the low mounds that give the cancha an undulating surface. In fact, the Herradura community agreed to our dig only on the condition that we redistribute the backfill to level out the playing field (at R36,]udy Kreid was asked not to backfill one of her deep cuts because it formed an excellent latrine-archaeology as public service indeed!). Before excavation proceeded, Paul Tolstoy and his team made a topographic map of the soccer field, a plan that intimates a structure in the size and distribution of the low undulations (fig. 7.2). With a little imagination, one can see this plan as consisting of generally paired mounds with each pair including a large primary mound and...