Jama Coaque

Jama Coaque is an archaeological culture of the Pacific coast of Ecuador, named for the territory between the Coaque and Jama rivers in northern Manabí Province, where mounds and pottery trace development from about 355 BC to the Spanish conquest. Its people lived in villages of earthen mounds.

The great ceremonial mound at San Isidro headed a hierarchy of sites with pyramid ramps and kilns for ceramics and metalworking. In the Regional Development period the society formed civic-religious chiefdoms, later confederated to control river valleys and long-distance trade.

Its artisans are best known for mold-made ceramic human figures with removable nose and ear ornaments, alongside sacred jaguars and hybrid beings; unlike their northern neighbours of La Tolita, they favoured the human form. The Campaces people met by the conquistadors are thought to have been the last bearers of the tradition.