484 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM 



to George Robert Lewis for the line drawings of specimens, and to 

 Judith Hill for typing the manuscript. 



For support of certain of the field expenses durmg the 1958 season, 

 the junior authors received Grant 2370 from the Penrose Fund of the 

 American Philosophical Society. The 1961 investigations were part 

 of Project J of the program organized by the Institute of Andean 

 Research on "Interrelationships of New World Cultures," financed 

 by a grant from the National Science Foundation. To all three 

 organizations, we wish to express our deep appreciation. 



Completion of this report was delayed by the unexpected death of 

 the senior author in November 1961. Although he did not see the 

 final version of the manuscript, we have retained the authorship we 

 had agreed upon together, not only because we believe that Estrada 

 would accept its content, but because without his persistence the 

 Jambeli culture, represented by some of the most unproductive and 

 uninviting sites to be found on the Ecuadorian coast, would have 

 remained only superficially known. 



Geographical Distribution and Site Characteristics 



Sites of the Jambeli culture occur on the coastal portions of the 

 Provinces of El Oro and Guayas, extending from the Peruvian border 

 up the coast and around the Gulf of Guayaquil to the vicinity of 

 Playas (fig. 1). All the sites included in this survey are located on the 

 peninsula between Playas and the Canal del Morro, on Puna Island or 

 on the islands off the coast of El Oro. Sherds of Jambeli pottery types 

 are reported from Tendales in El Oro Province, but this part of the 

 mainland and the portion of Guayas Province extending along the 

 eastern side of the Gulf of Guayaquil have not been surveyed. 



Today, this region does not present the uniform appearance that it 

 must have had during the existence of the Jambeli culture. The 

 Playas-Posorja area has suffered noticeable desiccation within the 

 memory of the residents, so that only small remnants are left of the 

 mangrove swamps that once occupied about 50 percent of the area. 

 Their former extent is indicated by the clotted lines representing the 

 boundaries of the large salitres that have taken their place (fig. 2). 

 This part of the coast now receives little rain, forcing the abandonment 

 of once prosperous cattle ranches and reducing to ghost towns formerly 

 populous communities. The same environmental situation exists on 

 Puna Island except for the southeastern part, which is low and broken 

 into small islands of mangrove giving it an appearance comparable to 

 that of the islands of El Oro to the south (fig. 3). 



The distribution and character of the Jambeli Phase sites indicates 

 that the southern portion of the area conserves the appearance that 



