3500 BC to 1459

Valdivia and the first cacao

On the coast of Santa Elena, the Valdivia culture makes some of the oldest pottery in the Americas, from before 3000 BC, and lives in settled villages. In the southern Amazon foothills, people of the Mayo-Chinchipe culture use cacao more than five thousand years ago, the earliest known. Later, peoples such as the Canari, the Caranqui and the Manteno build chiefdoms in the highlands and on the coast.