Architecture of the Early Valdivia Village

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Abstract
The architecture of early Valdivia (3300–2300 B.C.) communities provides information about the structure of early village life on the Ecuadorian Pacific coastal lowland. Household units from the sites of Real Alto and Loma Alta seem to exhibit domestic patterning in sleeping areas, cooking, tool working, cotton spinning, garbage disposal, and burial of the dead. The village layout provides a plan for settlement in the shape of a letter U. The Valdivia U-shaped village is briefly examined in its prehistoric context. Together, house and village patterns at Real Alto and Loma Alta reflect the beginnings of settled life in the context of an agricultural economy.