CULTURES OF MY PROVINCE

SANTA ELENA

Santa Elena is a province of the coast of Ecuador created on November 7, 2007, the most recent of the current 24, with territories that before that date were part of the Guayas province, west of it. Its capital is the city of Santa Elena.

The province was inhabited since prehistoric times by the Culture Las Vegas, this was the first culture that settled in the current territories of Ecuador in the Holocene and late Pleistocene on the coast between 8000 BC and 4600 BC. There are 31 settlements of this culture in the Peninsula of Santa Elena. The town of Las Vegas was devoted to hunting and gathering, and also developed primitive farming techniques.

Apparently they used bones to produce nets and textiles with various tools and containers made of shells. In addition, it is speculated that used wood, bark, bamboo and cane as tools of agriculture.

Later would come the Valdivia culture that developed between 3500 and 1800. C. on the west coast of Ecuador.

This culture settled in the peninsula of Santa Elena and in the estuary of the Guayas, Los Rios, Manabi and El Oro.

The development of the Valdivia culture gave way in the same area at the Machalilla culture and many of its cultural elements, such as ceramics, are rapidly disseminated into neighboring areas.

The people of this culture were potters who produced female figurines, the oldest stone and then clay, sometimes simple and more elaborate, were associated with fertility and health items.

The discovery of this ancient ceramics was in a public bathroom of the Ecuadorian coast, some decades ago, brought fame for Ecuador, from an archaeological point of view; Valdivia then appears as a true culture of the training period and one of the oldest in America.

There is no doubt that the Valdivia followed the archaic traditions of hunting, fishing and gathering shellfish, but so far not found clear evidence that the Valdivia was an intensely agricultural culture.

The highlight is that had the habit and ability to work clay soil got to make beautiful pieces of pottery, including female figurines stand today called "Venus", showing a special service to women and fertility.