Dating the Peopling of Northwestern South America: An AMS Date from El Inga Site, Highland Ecuador

Abstract

The El Inga site in Ecuador produced an important number of fishtail (or Fell) points. Early 1960s conventional radiocarbon assays yielded dates ranging between 9000 and 4900 ¹⁴C yr BP. Even the oldest one seems too young given dates for these artifacts in South America. We recently AMS dated a curated sample from Bell's original excavation. The new results are in agreement with dates obtained from fishtail point sites in the rest of the continent.

Keywords:

• peopling of South America
• AMS dating
• fishtail points
• Ecuador

Acknowledgements

Or deepest gratitude goes to the Paleoindian Program at the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Buenos Aires, and CONICET for their continuous support of Paleoamerican research; Ernesto Salazar for his help during the investigations performed in Ecuador; and A. Fresco for generously providing the sample for radiocarbon analysis.