Whenever mangrove swamps are mentioned, what spring to mind are rows of trees, sometimes all dried up but at other times luxuriant, with enormous roots sticking out of the water. It is hard to imagine man living in this sort of environment. However, the presence of certain grasses, ferns and algae spores points to there having once been marshy areas where the tide cycles, drag action and sedimentation were less harsh, allowing humans to settle and a number of plants to grow.

A human presence has been recorded for more than two thousand four hundred years. Between Esmeraldas in Ecuador and Buenaventura in Colombia, the region was inhabited on a permanent basis by societies that had adapted to these ecosystems.

There are "islets" in the swampy areas where the mangrove swamp grows, and these firm, sandy deposits in the middle of the salt water, which are dry and flat, were used for constructing artificial mounds, and it was on these mounds that settlers two thousand years ago built their homes and cemeteries.

Their pottery depicted certain special structures that were used for rituals and ceremonies, and also their houses, which were generally rectangular or square, with gabled roofs. Archaeologists have been able to check this information from remains of buildings that have been found, such as fragments of adobe that they encountered near fields where crops were once grown at the El Gran Cebú site, and fragments with cane marks on them, found in the lower River Guayas area.

Because of the peculiar features of the terrain, their food supply was based on what the mangrove swamp had to offer, such as the countless numbers of molluscs and crustaceans that got entangled in the roots of the trees, and numerous birds and fish.

Certain information has survived about pre-Hispanic fishing activities in the estuaries, such as the fact that small canoes were used, together with nets fitted with stone weights, and hooks made of gold and shells. It is a tradition that has survived down to the present day in the vessels known as "potrillos a vela" that are used in Ecuador and Peru.

When preparing fish for cooking, they had to use de-scalers, and small stones were encrusted in these to make the task easier. These objects were basically designed to look like a fish, perhaps inspired by the rough scales on certain species, such as sea urchins.

They also grew maize and cassava on plots of farming land around their settlements. Maize was first grown on the coast of Ecuador around 3200 B.C., at places like Loma Alta and San Isidro, although in the southern coastal region of Colombia, both this crop and cassava were unknown until 1000 B.C. This information has been obtained from fossil pollen records made by archaeologists in the course of their digs at sites like Cocotera, on the River Bubuey (Cauca).

Their pottery reveals that these ancient settlers must also have eaten things like armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus), monkeys (cebus sp.) and opossums (Didelphys sp.).

Tumaco and the Gold Museum Exhibition

Living in the Mangrove Swamp

The Expression of Power in Tumaco - La Tolita

The Life Cycle