Was Jōmon the origin of the Valdivia culture?
According to the polygenetic theory of the French scholar Paul Rivet, people from Melanesia, Polynesia, Australia and northern Asia arrived, in a period between 30 and 4 millennia ago, to the coasts of the New World, sailing in improvised boats.
Paul Rivet's theses (explained in his book The Origins of American Man) are not just assumptions, but are based on serious linguistic and ethnographic studies. One of the most suggestive hypotheses of the entire polygenetic theory is the probable trip that some members of the Japanese Jōmon culture made to the New World and its strong influence on the Valdivia culture, which developed in present-day Ecuador in the third millennium BC.
Jōmon flourished from the eleventh millennium BC. After the increase in average sea level, caused by the progressive end of glaciation in the northern hemisphere and by climatic disorders of extraordinary dimensions, remembered as the universal flood, many inhabitants of the Shikoku and Kyûshû islands, which were almost completely flooded moved to the main island of Hônshu. As early as 10,000 BC, the first ceramic creations emerged, making Jōmon ceramics the oldest in the world.
In the central period of the Jōmon culture (4835 to 1860 BC) excellence was achieved in ceramic creations, which were used for both practical and ceremonial purposes. The resemblance to Korean terracotta suggests that since that remote period there were trade exchanges between Japan and the Korean peninsula.
However, the Jōmon did not begin to practice agriculture until the first millennium BC, which constitutes one of the mysteries of this particular civilization. Some archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient inhabitants of the islands currently belonging to Japan lived mainly by fishing, collecting mollusks and crustaceans, hunting, and harvesting wild fruits. Only in the first millennium BC was the cultivation of rice introduced (from China).
The extraordinary similarity of Jōmon ceramics to the ceramics of the Valdivia culture of Ecuador suggests that some groups of ancient Japanese arrived in present-day Ecuador around the 4th millennium BC and influenced the ceramic creations of the Valdivians.
The Valdivia culture, which prospered from 3600 BC to 1800 BC in the current area of the provinces of Manabí and Santa Elena, was based on agriculture (especially corn, peanuts, chili, manioc and cotton), fishing and hunting. Craft activities, such as ceramics, textile art and the creation of artifacts from precious shells (spondilus), animal bones and semiprecious stones, played an important role in the society of Valdivia, which traded with neighboring towns. (it was shown that there were exchanges with the city of Caral, located in central Peru, near the coast).
Although it has recently been proven that Valdivia did not produce the oldest ceramics in America (recent discoveries indicated that the most archaic, although poorly refined, was that of Puerto Hormiga, in Colombia, which dates back to 4000 BC) the similarities with the Jōmon ceramics are such that they lead one to think that contact between the two peoples, although sporadic and fortuitous, could have really occurred. This theory was supported by spouses Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans.
However, many questions remain: how did these ancient Japanese cross the Ocean and, above all, what was the reason that prompted them to carry out this risky navigation? It must be remembered that the Jōmon culture had not developed the practice of agriculture. So how was it possible to undertake such a journey without agricultural production?
On the other hand, why, after crossing the Pacific Ocean, or perhaps coasting North America, did the ancient Japanese land and settle right in Ecuador?
In my opinion, it is possible that a small group of Japanese sailors, perhaps due to a strong storm, were driven very far from their island, even to the Aleutian Islands. From those places, unable to return to Japan due to contrary winds, they could have decided resolutely to explore those lands unknown to them, living from fishing and staying occasionally along the coast to stock up on water, fruit and mollusks. They stopped in Ecuador by chance or perhaps because they were peacefully welcomed by the Valdivians. The number of Japanese was low and, therefore, they were incorporated into American culture, providing valuable information about the creation of ceramics.
Around 2300 BC, the Valdivians began making female terracotta figurines (called the Venus of Valdivia), usually pregnant or even almost ready to give birth. According to some researchers, these statuettes had the function of evoking the fertility of the earth, while, according to others, their objective was to heal some diseases. Once the goal of improving the patient's health was achieved, they were destroyed (this explains the fact that many of them were found fragmented).
The archaeological site of El Alto, which was studied in the last century, was inhabited by about 1,500 people in the final phase of the Valdivia culture. It is thought that the society of Valdivia was matriarchal, like for example the Wayúu society, in the current north of Colombia. This statement was reached because the remains of a woman were found in El Alto in a tomb surrounded by large stones and other smaller graves of men who were subjected to sacrifices.
All of this may suggest that the Valdivia culture was in a transition phase, after which it would become a not egalitarian, but rather a stratified society, in which the chief would centralize temporal and perhaps spiritual power.
The coastal area where the Valdivia culture developed was invaded since 1800 BC by the people called Machalilla. Starting in 1500 BC, the Chorrera culture evolved in the same region, which prospered until the fourth century BC and which was also distinguished by its wonderful ceramic creations and its surprising gynoid figurines.
YURI LEVERATTO
