Abstract
This chapter summarizes results of excavations at Manachaqui Cave, a stratified rock shelter site beside a pre-Hispanic paved road used by travellers moving between the Andean highlands and the Amazon Basin. During 10,000 years of use, Manachaqui served as a hunting camp, semi-permanent habitation, and a travellers’ camp and refuge from the harsh climate frequently encountered at the cloud forest edge in tropical montane forests. The site and especially its assemblages dating from the Late Preceramic Period through the Early Intermediate Period provide a rare window on the nature of human occupation in the ceja de selva, changing travel and transport technologies, strategies for information exchange using ceramic styles and decorative symbols, and the growth of sociopolitical and economic complexity among autochthonous and autonomous societies on the eastern slopes. Evidence of interregional interaction reflects human decision-making embedded within historical and social contexts, and not just interaction between “cultures” or resource zones. The functionally specialized character of Manachaqui’s material culture offers singular insights into changing modes of pre-Hispanic travel, commodity transport, and societal communication during a crucial period of emerging cultural complexity in Central Andes.
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