QUITO, ECUADOR—La Prensa Latina reports that researchers from Canada’s University of Calgary have handed over to Ecuador 166 crates of human remains and artifacts belonging to the Valdivia culture, including a type of well-known ceramic figurine known as the “Venus of Valdivia.” The objects date to between 3800 and 1500 B.C., and were unearthed in southwestern Ecuador in the early 1980s. “They didn’t just return objects and fragments, but all of the scientific information,” explained Joaquin Moscoso of Ecuador’s National Institute of Cultural Patrimony. Florencio Delgado of San Francisco de Quito University said Canadian research over the past 40 years has shown that some of the earliest ceramics in southwestern Ecuador were made by people who lived inland. It had been previously thought that the region’s earliest ceramics were made by people who lived along the coast. Delgado added that future research will include DNA studies of the bones in the collection, in order to try to determine how the area was settled. To read about the remains of children from Ecuador's Guangala culture who were buried wearing the craniums of older children, go to "Protecting the Young."
