The oldest American ceramics appeared about 6000 years ago in the tropical lowlands of the Intermediate and Amazon Area, and are generally associated with the beginnings of sedentary life and early agricultural experimentation.

The villagers from Ecuador’s Valdivia culture, around 3300 BC, began to make domestic vessels imitating plant shapes and produced the continent’s first ceramic sculptures.

One thousand years later, their Machalilla and Chorrera heirs perfected this growing craft by innovating shapes and technology to achieve spectacular dominance and refinement in pottery arts.