Qualla: Santa Ana (La Florida) https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/p/t/santa-ana-la-florida-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Santa Ana (La Florida) https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida Santa Ana (La Florida): Introduction https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida/ Photo credit Creart2008, CC BY-SA 4.0. For most of the twentieth century, the story of chocolate began in Mesoamerica. The Olmec, then the Maya, then the Aztec - cacao was their sacred plant, their ritual drink, their currency. Then in 2018, a team of archaeologists published findings in Nature Ecology and Evolution that moved the origin of cacao use by thousands of miles and several millennia. The evidence came from a hectare of ground in southern Ecuador, on the eastern slope of the Andes, at a site called Santa Ana (La Florida). Cacao residue in pottery vessels dated to roughly 3,300 BC. The Americas had been drinking something like cocoa for 5,300 years.

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Image: Creart2008 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/p/t/santa-ana-la-florida-wp/6ppt-santa-ana-la-florida-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Santa Ana (La Florida): The River Valley Between Worlds https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida/ Photo credit SimonLuzuriaga, CC BY-SA 4.0. Santa Ana sits in the Palanda Canton of Zamora-Chinchipe Province, just north of Palanda, in the narrow valley where the Palanda River threads between the highlands and the lowland jungle. The Palanda flows into the Mayo-Chinchipe, which flows into the Rio Maranon, which joins th...

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Image: SimonLuzuriaga | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/p/t/santa-ana-la-florida-wp/6ppt-santa-ana-la-florida-the-river-valley-between-worlds.mp3 0:06 2 full Santa Ana (La Florida): A Spiral Temple and a Sunken Plaza https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida/ Photo credit SimonLuzuriaga, CC BY-SA 4.0. French and Ecuadoran archaeologists began working at Santa Ana in 2002, under the leadership of Francisco Valdez. What they found was a village organized around a central sunken plaza, flanked by two artificial platforms. One platform held a temple with a spiral configuration - a...

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Image: SimonLuzuriaga | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/p/t/santa-ana-la-florida-wp/6ppt-santa-ana-la-florida-a-spiral-temple-and-a-sunken-plaza.mp3 0:06 3 full Santa Ana (La Florida): The Cacao Proof https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida/ Photo credit SimonLuzuriaga, CC BY-SA 4.0. Finding ancient cacao use is harder than it sounds. The plant does not always preserve well, and residues degrade. The team used three independent lines of evidence to confirm their finding: starch grains from cacao inside vessels, theobromine residue absorbed into the ceramic wa...

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Image: SimonLuzuriaga | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/p/t/santa-ana-la-florida-wp/6ppt-santa-ana-la-florida-the-cacao-proof.mp3 0:06 4 full Santa Ana (La Florida): The Mayo-Chinchipe Culture https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida/ Photo credit SimonLuzuriaga, CC BY-SA 4.0. The culture responsible for Santa Ana is now known as Mayo-Chinchipe, named for the rivers that define its territory. In Ecuador the river is called Chinchipe; in Peru, further downstream, it becomes Mayo. The cultural zone extends from Podocarpus National Park in southern Ecuado...

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Image: SimonLuzuriaga | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/p/t/santa-ana-la-florida-wp/6ppt-santa-ana-la-florida-the-mayo-chinchipe-culture.mp3 0:06 5 full Santa Ana (La Florida): What Else They Grew https://qualla.com/santa-ana-la-florida/ Photo credit SimonLuzuriaga, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cacao was not the only crop the Mayo-Chinchipe people cultivated. Archaeologists have documented corn, beans, manioc, sweet potato, Dioscorea yams, arrowroot, hot peppers, and coca. The list reads like a comprehensive inventory of the plants that would eventually feed most of the...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/p/t/santa-ana-la-florida-wp/6ppt-santa-ana-la-florida-what-else-they-grew.mp3 0:06 6 full