Archaeology Magazine - March 1949 - 34

ARCHAEOLOGY

Pottery head of a noble wearing a helmet,
nose ornament, and collar. The curious
bulb on the back of the head results from
the conventionalized representation of artificial head-flattening, common in this style.
Museum, Popayán, No.
(Archaeological
46.27.146. 10 cm. high.)
Saville
made notes and collections there early
in the present century but published only brief
The biggest museum collections from
reports.
Atacames are probably those of the Museum of
the American Indian, New York; the Musée de
Mul'Homme, in Paris, and the Archaeological
seum in Popayán, Colombia.
There are also a number of private collections,
some of them very extensive, in Europe and America. M. Raoul d'Harcourt,
the distinguished
French peruvianist, has recently published a beautifully illustrated description of two collections
in Paris from the southern part of the area 'Archéologie de la Province d'Esmeraldas
(Equateur),'
Journal de la Société des Americanistes , n. s., vol.
34, pages 61-200 (Paris 1947).
The collection in the museum at Popayán is
in some ways the most remarkable of all. It was
made by Sr. Max Seidel, for many years a resident of Tumaco, who bought the most artistic
pieces brought to him by the rivermen from the
northeastern part of the Atacames area, and its
best pieces are easily superior artistically to the

Spring 1949

best of the pieces that have been previously published.
Prof. Gregorio
Hernandez
de Alba,
director of the museum, very kindly permitted me
to study the Atacames collection and. authorized
the publication of ten examples.
He is preparing
a more detailed study of his own of this material.
I had an opportunity to visit Tumaco in December, 1947, with Mr. Victor W. von Hägen,
and we explored two sites of the Atacames culture on the Island of El Morro, across the harbor from the town.
Both were low sand banks
or
two
three
feet of ancient habitation
topped by
full
of
refuse,
pottery fragments.
They were exwhere
streams
cut
had
into
the
posed
banks, and
the sherds appearing on the surface had already
been picked over by the local collectors.
Sites of
this sort are abundant in the Tumaco area and
would well repay excavation.
In addition to their fine pottery modelling, the
cfaftsmen of Atacames were some of the best
in native America.
. Considerable
metallurgists
of
small
metal objects have been found
quantities
at the great Atacames mound site of La Tolita
h{Province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador) and analyzed
by Paul Bergsoe of Copenhagen, who identified
the numerous technical processes used by the Atacames people in the treatment of gold, platinum,
copper and lead for the manufacture of jewelry.
There is little doubt that these people were the
first metallurgists in the world to use platinum.
All students of the art of Atacames are struck
by its apparent resemblance to certain Mexican
and Central American styles, and Max Uhle
even went so far as to attribute the Atacames culture to Maya immigrants.
There are also definite resemblances in the Atacames material to the
Early and Late Chimu styles of the northern
Peruvian coast, and naturally enough even closer
ones to the archaeology of the Manabi area just
south of Atacames on the coast of Ecuador.
The relationship
of Atacames art to that of
other areas is a very intriguing problem, but one
that cannot be satisfactorily solved until we have
some idea of its chronological position. w For example, no evidence yet to hand indicates that the
Atacames style is later than the similar styles in
Mexico and the Maya area, so that even if the
resemblances indicated some direct contact, the
direction in which the influences moved would
remain in doubt.
For the present, Atacames remains one of the greatest challenges in New World
archaeology.

Archaeology Magazine - March 1949

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1949