Anti-urban systems, oracular archaeological complexes and hydraulic technologies adapted to the eastern montaña region of Ecuador: The Magic Valley of the Upano River

Located between the eastern Andes and the peri-amazonian basin of Ecuador, the Upano river covers a mountainous area of 6075.54 km² along its main course of 266.73 linear km. In its upstream, monumental archaeological complexes coincide with a visual domain of the very active volcano Sangay and are distributed mainly at the headwaters of the river basins that flow into the Upano, which have allowed the development of an adapted hydraulic technology during ca. 1400 BC to 1200 AD. This lecture will consider a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction with a Bayesian approach (ca. 4-0.5 kyr) to understand the aboriginal occupation and some of the main religious factors of the Upano River valley.