FORMATIVE SETTLEMENT-PATTERNS IN THE VALDIVIA VALLEY, SW COASTAL ECUADOR

The prevailing view of the Formative in Ecuador is of a period charact erized by precocious development and transformation. Initially, the Ea rly Formative (Valdivia) period is marked by a very early appearance o f ceramics associated with large U-shaped or circular villages reminis cent of Tropical Forest Culture in the Amazon Basin. Subsequently, thr ough the Valdivia period, these villages assumed an increasingly cerem onial function, while much of the population was dispersed among small settlements scattered along the river valleys. The Early Formative th us apparently witnessed a transformation in settlement, from nucleated villages to a dispersed peasantry surrounding ceremonial centers, and this is characterized as a perhaps seminal, first step in the evoluti on of the great ceremonial centers of Nuclear America. While the outco me of this evolutionary process in Mesoamerica and the central Andes i s well known, it seems to have had little impact in Ecuador: at the en d of the Valdivia period, ceremonial activity at the old village sites appears to have ceased, while population seemingly remained dispersed .