The Pro-Pueblo and Presley Norton Foundations have facilitated the use of the Salango Research Center as the field school base of operations. The center is located in the southern Manabi province of Ecuador, approximately 4 hours from the main city of Guayaquil. The field school area of interest is the southern Manabi province, Ecuador. During the late Pleistocene and early to middle Holocene, the Pacific coast of this province was part of a large tropical forest spreading from the eastern flank of the Andes down to the coastal plain. Today, the region is characterized by shallow and deep water bays, alluvial valleys and mountains.
Results show a continuous occupation.
Over time, agricultural communities with a significant long distance coastal trade network emerged. The goal of FAU's program is to reconstruct the prehistory and paleoecology of the region. This beach-front site is located on the south bank of the Rio Chico, a river running westward into the Pacific Ocean. The survey focuses on the identification of geomorphological features within the alluvial valleys and the identification of other prehistoric sites. The Survey Report.