Pre-Columbian Cultures – The Saga Continues… Item Number: 100026 $0.00

DescriptionLast week I started a “travelog blog” of the Pre-Columbian cultures. Showing traditional naiveté I was up to three full pages before I had even come close to venturing outside the borders of Peru. Fortunately, the remainder of South America is not nearly as rich in ancient cultures as the massive Peruvian countryside, so with luck, I may finish this well before my son begins attending college in 4 years.

Having finished Peru, let’s continue our little journey and head north up to Ecuador, then we will round the continent and finish back in Argentina.

ECUADOR
• Valdivia, Ca 3500 to 1500 BC. Little is known about this very early culture except for their adorable little solid clay “Venus” figures and strange stone slab figures in the forms of Star-charts, and abstract idols in human and often owl forms. Word of caution, some experts claim the vast majority of the stone figures are not authentic.
• Chorrera, Ca 1500 to 300 BC. Contemporaries of the Chavin, the Chorrera culture produced fine potteries with great skill and detail. While many attribute the invention of the stirrup vessel to the Chavin, the Chorrera produced one of the world’s first bridge-spouted vessels.
• Machalilla, Ca 1500 BC – 800. Produced hard to find, but exquisite potteries in polychrome. Probable that they traded influences with the Chavin and Cupsnique of Peru.
• La Tolita, Ca 600 to 400 BC. Primarily producing a single-colored (reddish) pottery, the La Tolita made lovely abstract figural pieces in the forms of jaguars, shamans and other human forms.
• Bahia, Ca 500 BC to 500 AD. Highly burnished pottery figures in black/grayware. Highly skilled potters.
• Jama Coaque or Jamacoaque, Ca 350 to 1500 AD. Perhaps the best known and most widely distributed of all potteries from Ecuador. Known for their buff terracotta’s decorated in vibrant water-based colors in red, yellow and green. Common themes are animals, shamans, human figures, maternity groups, warriors and transformational beasts. Another word of caution – a large number of fakes from this culture flooded the US in the last 10 years.
• Guangala, Ca 100 – 800 AD. Standing figures usually in two-toned terracotta with portions highly burnished and other areas left reserved.

COLOMBIA
• Tairona, Ca 100 AD – 1600 AD. Fine potters producing an unusual style of pottery, almost always in burnished blackware often in abstract animal and human forms. Amazing ocarinas (small rounded whistles or flutes) are a hallmark of this culture. Additionally, incredibly ornate gold figures and abstract stone carvings (most famously perhaps are the bat-wing pectorals) are common from the Tairona.
• Narino, Ca 850 to 1500 AD. Best known for their bi- and polychrome pottery bowls, often decorated in negative resist patterns of birds, animals and human scenes. The Narino also produced massive negative-resist decorated burial amphoras ranging in size up to 40” high.
• Quimbaya, Ca 300 to 800 AD. Producing their enigmatic solid slab figures of seated humans that are a must for most collectors of South American potteries. They range from quite simple to somewhat complex and are fabulous examples of “modernism” in ancient art.
• Muisica, Ca 800 to 1500 AD. Best known for their fabulous gold work (often incorporating the tumbaga technique), they also produced reasonably adequate potteries.
• Calima, Ca 300 to 800 AD. Not to be confused with the Colima culture of western Mexico, the Calima produced fine potteries, often looking similar in style to earlier Chorrera pottery from Ecuador, and also produced fine gold items.
• Sinu, Ca 500 to 1000 AD. Known almost exclusively for their fine gold production.

VENEZUELA
• Taino / Arawak, Ca 500 BC to 1500 AD. One of the few Caribbean cultures and the native culture first encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Known for crudely potted but interesting potteries, stone figures called Zemis and stone bowls. The modern people of the Caribbean have discovered a “new” industry in the faking of ancient Taino stone-work, therefore the vast majority of the stone material on the market is unfortunately not authentic.

BRAZIL
• Marajo, Ca 350 to 1600 AD. The Marajoara was a Native American culture that existed on Marajo Island, which is by the delta of the Amazon River in Brazil. This culture was almost unknown before 2001 when a major excavation took place. Producing pottery with highly detailed decorations in red over a buff background. Because so little of this pottery exists, it commands a bit of a premium.

ARGENTINA
• Condorhuasi / Catamarca, Ca 3200 to 0 BC. Known primarily for its black or grayware potteries and its very rare polychrome figures. Crude by some standards, the pottery from this region is rare to find and commands high prices.
• La Aguada, Ca 500 to 900 AD. Incised grayware pottery, usually in the form of large bowls, are the most common artifacts from this little-known culture.
• Other cultures from this massive region include Santa Maria, La Cienega, and Belen, although potteries or implements from this region seldom make their way to market.

There are certainly other smaller cultures from South America that I did not touch upon. But, this list, in conjunction with last week’s list of Peruvian cultures is a fairly complete synopsis of the major (and many minor) cultures of South America. If you would like to learn more or see images of the incredible art from these regions, try Google Images.

Happy collecting!

Bob Dodge