Pedro Porras can, quite literally, be called the “father of Ecuadorian archaeology.” Wearing a black cossack and white collar, the Jesuit priest did extensive research in just about every corner of the country.

This includes the Amazon rainforest, where Father Porras was the first to research and document the ancient Upano Valley culture, a complex network of earthen platforms, roads and canals in eastern Ecuador dating back 2,500 years ago.

“In February 1978, by a stroke of luck, and a mention by missionary Salesiano P. Juan Butasso, I discovered the ceremonial site of Guapula,” Porras wrote in the foreword to his book Investigaciones Arqheologicas a las faldas del Sangay (Archaeological Investigations in the Foothills of Sangay).

The Guapula platform — more widely known as Huapula — is one of the largest sites within the human-altered landscape of the Upano Valley. Overlooked by the 5,286-meter-high (17,341-feet-high) Sangay volcano, this is the part of Ecuador where the Andes mountains and Amazon rainforest meet.

Led by Porras, a team of students and archaeologists from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE in Spanish) conducted the first Upano Valley excavation in August 1978. Fourteen more digs followed over the next six years, according to Porras, totalling 210 days, or 29,400 hours, of field work, which ultimately resulted in the publication of his book in 1987.

“Father Porras is an extremely important figure in Ecuadorian archaeology, both as a researcher and a teacher,” Ecuadorian archaeologist Fernanda Ugalde told Mongabay on a video call. “He worked across the country, often with very few resources, and often in very inhospitable places.”

“I think his work in the Amazon rainforest is the most important,” said Ugalde, who is a curator at the Arts of the Americas department of the Rietberg Museum in Zurich, Switzerland. “Because he was the first to do so for many years in a row, and he did so in many different places within the forest.”

Born in 1915 in Ambato, a city located approximately 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of the capital city of Quito, Porras was not formally trained as an archaeologist. He studied philosophy in Italy and pedagogy in Puerto Rico, before doing several postgraduate courses in the United States.

Starting in the 1950s, he traveled through Ecuador as a missionary, while dedicating part of his life to history with — in his own words — “the sole desire to reconstruct the region’s past through serious and thorough archaeological investigation.”

According to Rita del Consuelo di Balcazar, a historian at the Ecuadorian National Institute of Cultural Heritage (INPC in Spanish), Porras’ travels and laborious efforts took him from the bottom of the Andes’ Quijos and Cosanga valleys to the slopes of the Sangay volcano and from the Cave of the Oilbirds to Puna Island. He published over 80 manuscripts, including books on the rock art of Ecuador’s Napo Valley and Quito’s ancient past.

“On his travels he often faced extremely difficult situations,” Balcazar told Mongabay by email. “He had to cross rivers and swamps and clear a path through the jungle by machete. The transport of recovered materials was done by mule, as roads were nothing more than a long longed-for promise back then. Not to mention that he worked on very limited budgets. His work truly was one of titans’.”

The Science controversy

While Porras’ book on the Upano Valley culture is well-known within Ecuador — and certainly among experts — it received little attention outside the country. It is only available in Spanish, and it arguably didn’t help that it went against the then-dominant doctrine of environmental determinism, according to which a rainforest is not able to bring forth and support a complex culture or large population.

The opposite happened in January 2024, however, when Science journal published the article ‘2000 years of garden urbanism in the upper Amazon.’ Presenting the data of lidar remote sensing mapping some 30,000 hectares (74,132 acres) in eastern Ecuador, the American publication described the Upano Valley culture as “the largest urban network of erected and excavated features known in Amazonia.”

The European-led team of researchers concluded there were more than 6,000 earthen platforms dating back 2,500 years ago, forming a geometrical pattern within a landscape of agricultural fields, terraces, canals and ditches interconnected by roads.

The paper triggered an avalanche of publications across the globe. From the BBC to the Hindustan Times, headlines screamed that a lost city had been found under the canopy.

In Ecuador, the primary reaction was one of surprise and anger.

Surprise, as the existence of the platforms, canals and roads in the Upano Valley had been long known.

Thanks to the technological advancements of lidar remote sensing, the Science authors were able to describe the Upano Valley culture in greater detail than Porras. However, in essence, their conclusions did not differ from what he had described decades ago.

There was anger, as many Ecuadorian researchers felt their past contributions to unraveling the past were insufficiently, or not at all, acknowledged by the paper and completely ignored by most international media.

“Science brought a lot of international attention to eastern Ecuador, which in itself is a good thing,” said Ugalde. “But, thanks to Porras, we have known about the Upano Valley culture for almost 50 years. What’s more, in 2023 Alejandra Sanchez-Polo and Rita Alvarez Litben had already published the main findings of remote sensing.”

Featuring in the first-ever issue of INPC’s magazine Revista Ecuatoriana de Arqueología y Paleontología, Sanchez-Polo and Litben’s paper in Spanish, titled ‘A monumental pre-Hispanic landscape in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon: First results of the application of lidar in the Upano Valley,’ offers a summary of past archaeological research, including that of Porras’, before presenting the main findings of the remote sensing process, which started in 2015.

The authors identified over 7,500 manmade structures, including 5,415 platforms, 1,511 truncated hills, 260 rounded mounds and more than 300 km (186 mi) of roads. Comparing Upano Valley to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and the Mayan cities in Mexico, they said they believe the Upano Valley was once densely populated with tens of thousands of people.

“We had the opportunity to work with all that data, see the extent of the structures and, indeed, publish it,” Sánchez-Polo told Spanish newspaper El País. “But since we weren’t publishing in Science, it didn’t create the same stir.”

Porras’ work provides essential historical evidence supporting the contemporary push by scientists, such as Brazilian archaeologist Eduardo Neves, to protect the Amazon not just as a natural wonder but also as cultural heritage. Neves advocates for utilizing archaeological knowledge to safeguard the Amazon ecosystem by designating archaeological sites as national monuments.

Professor Porras

Porras’ importance reaches beyond his research in the Upano Valley and elsewhere. In 1964, Porras was appointed professor of archaeology at PUCE, where in 1973 he established the Center for Archaeological Research.

According to Ugalde, it was Porras who introduced archaeology as an academic discipline in Ecuador and as such became the “father” of generations of homegrown archaeologists.

“To me, the most important word when describing Father Porras is ‘passion,’” said Ugalde. “Both in his research and his teaching. Unfortunately, I was never one of his students. But everyone tells me he greatly inspired his students.”

Archaeologist Rita di Belalcazar said she was fortunate enough to have studied and worked with Porras. She first met him in 1984, when she entered PUCE as a history student. A year later, she received a scholarship to work at the university’s Center for Archaeological Research.

“I worked with father Porras for some 4-5 years, which allowed me to get to know him intimately,” she said. “He was a very cultured man. He spoke eight languages, including Latin, and had a large library specialized in social sciences.”

“He was already in his 70s at the time,” she continued. “But despite his age, he was tireless, always reading or correcting his manuscripts. He always demanded one’s best effort, yet was generous in sharing his knowledge. And he was grateful. If you look at his books, he always made an effort to thank his collaborators, recognizing the effort each and every one had put in.”

In 1988, Porras helped establish the Weilbauer Archaeological Museum, which presents a history of human development in Ecuador between 11,000 B.C.E. and 1,500 C.E.

Part of PUCE, the museum is named after Eugen and Hilde Weilbauer, who in 1939 fled from Nazi Germany. Settled in Archidona in Ecuador’s Napo province, they developed a love for ancient artifacts which, following their deaths, were left to PUCE.

Today, the Weilbauer Archaeological Museum is home to not only their collection, but also Porras’ immense archive. One of the institute’s main tasks is to digitize everything from the photos he took to his notes and manuscripts.

Porras died in Quito in 1990. According to Ugalde, his references to Indigenous people are outdated and his interpretations are no longer always valid.

An exception is his view on Cosanga ceramics, which he — rightly — believed originated in the Amazon and not in the Andes highlands, as most experts long claimed.

“Safeguarding his archive is of extreme importance,” said Ugalde. “Father Porras documented his excavation sites extremely well. And this will be a great help for future generations of archaeologists researching Ecuador’s past.”

New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches

FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.