Maritime traders of coastal Ecuador who plied the Pacific on balsawood sailing rafts, diving for the sacred Spondylus shell that they traded as far as Mexico and organizing coastal chiefdoms compared by archaeologists to a Hanseatic-style trading league.
Never conquered by the Inca, who let the Manteño-Huancavilca trade rather than fight for their Spondylus shell and food; the culture ended with the Spanish arrival in the region by 1600, after which its descendant communities were absorbed into colonial Ecuadorian coastal society.
Continental prehistory covering the Manteno-Huancavilca coast of Ecuador.
Focused excavation study of the Santa Elena Peninsula, the historic Huancavilca coastal heartland.