The first humans to have set foot on this new continent and therefore ¨discovered America¨ for our specie was not Christopher Columbus and his sailing buddies but Asian explorers, who came in the last Ice Age, some 20.000 years ago by way of the land Beringia (nowadays underwater and called Bering Strait), which connected Asia with America at that time. Those invaders were thought to have found a way through the Northern ice masses and then following and hunting larger animals to have dispersed throughout the whole North and South American continent. There is now also some talk and speculation about them having arrived much earlier ( maybe 30.000 BC ) and also other people having gotten here by boat crossing the Pacific ocean or the Atlantic from Europe, skirting the arctic belt but nobody knows for sure yet and the dispute is an ongoing one among anthropologists and historians.

In Ecuador, the earliest evidences of human presence date back to 12.000 BC. In a few sites, scattered around the country, animal remains and human artifacts from those early days were found. Life at that time is imagined as people having lived in small tribes with men having hunted with stone bolas for llama-like animals and women and children having gathered fruits, nuts, roots and other edible vegetables (but it could have been also the other way around in some cases). An important aspect of that time is the start of a warming period of our planet, changing from the Ice Age to our now present-day climate and its impact to our forefathers.

Throughout the millennia then, people changed from hunters-gatherers to more agricultural societies with the cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals. Corn and potatoes played a big part in it and evolved into the staple foods of many people. Later both these crops with other endemic American plants (e.g. tomatoes and cacao) enriched the diet of the whole world. In those permanent agricultural settlements, people grew in numbers and division of work and standings in the community evolved. The use of ceramics and metals started to occur hand in hand with other improvements involving the making of clothes, baskets and more permanent housing.

The oldest culture found using already those techniques is Valdivia on the Pacific coast at around 3500 BC, famous for the quality of their ceramics, especially Venus figurines. Later on, other cultures emerged and distinguished themselves in the making of ceramics and metalwork's, with a special mention to the people of the La Tolita culture in Esmeraldas, which flourished from 600 BC to 400 AD. Apart from their mastery of pottery and metals, those cultures also mastered the art of agriculture with constructions of terraces and water irrigation projects. A sophisticated trading system evolved with established trade routes ranging from the coastal plains up to the Andes mountains and right into the Amazon Lowland jungle. Later also important sea trading routes along the Pacific coast came into being. Those trades not only involved exchanges of goods (e.g.: seashells were used in every regions of the country) but also precious stones were used as means of payment.

Moving alone in the years, many tribes banded together peace- or forcefully into bigger unions with varying degrees of social and political integrations. An important characteristic of those bigger groups were the communal use of agricultural lands with an increase in productivity and a co-ordination of economic, social and religious activities under an hereditary authority. Before the time of the Inca invasions the bigger political entities were the Cañari people of Southern Ecuador, the Shyri nation around Quito and a confederation of tribes in the Northern Part of the Andes mountains, including the Otavaleños, Caranquis and Cayambeños. In the coastal regions a tribe called the Caras had the largest expansion and influence. A very important aspect of that time was their great astronomical knowledge. The stars, sun and moon played an important role in their lives and the celestial movements were observed studiously. Archaeological evidence show that the Andean people (living right around the equator with a clear view to the sky) knew already before Christ's birth that the earth was round and earth's tilt in relation to the sun. 

Conquest of Ecuadorian Indians by the Inca Empire started under the reign of Tupac Yupanqui in the latter part of the 15th century, fighting first bitterly with the Cañari nation. After his death, his son (with a Cañari princess) Huayna Capac completed the conquest of the rest of Ecuador, also having to fight tough battles with the northern tribes (Yahuarcocha Lake in Imbabura means lake of blood). At its height of dominance the Incas controlled an empire reaching from Central Chile to Southern Colombia. Although Ecuador was only part of the Inca Empire from 80 years (southern part) to 40 years (northern part) the influence of the Incas was considerably great. Not only did they introduce a common language among the various tribes (Quechua is still spoken today and an official language in the country) but also their authoritarian and centralized style of government had a lingering influence, especially as that was continued later by the Spaniards. To control such a big empire, methods took place like the displacement of whole tribes (e.g.: the Salasaca people near Ambato were originally from Bolivia), removal of the ruling class from recently conquered tribes, etc. but also positive things, like an efficient administration, the storage of grains for needy years, their great building skills of roads and irrigation canals helped to keep the many cultures under one banner.

In 1526 Huayna Capac died and left the Empire to two of his sons. Atahualpa, his supposedly favorite son with a Shyri princess, got the Northern part of the Empire with Quito as its capital and Huascar, the oldest and therefore traditionally legitimate successor, the Southern Part with the old Inca capital Cuzco. And as it always seems to happen in the best families, nobody was satisfied with his share of the inheritance and pretty soon fighting broke out between the brothers, which eventually led to a full-blown civil war. And as the devil will have it, that had to occur right at that point of time in history when strange, pale-faced men in iron clothes with the power of producing lightning and thunder and furthermore sitting atop fearsome four-legged monsters, so different and so much bigger than their own beloved llamas, appeared and
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