Caranquis also known as caras or imbayas is the name given to an ancient culture that inhabited the northern highlands of present-day Ecuador. Studies show that this culture covered the south of the province of Carchi, the entire province of Imbabura, and all the north of the province of Pichincha, which includes the town of Cayambe and Tabacundo today.[1]
They were characterized by being a people with much development and their culture was characterized by being based on the language "cara", they also had a monumental architecture which they called "tolas", their cosmogony linked them to the sea and an ancestral landing on the shores of the Bay of Caraquez, so in its origin they are related to the Caribbean peoples. They were skilled traders and settled between the Pastos Country to the north, the Quitus to the south and the Yumbos to the west.
Its formal study begins with the publication of the "Aborigines of Imbabura" by the archaeologist Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño. It was qualified by González Suárez as the "first that has been treated according to the rigorously scientific method".
- ^ Efraín Avilés Pino. "Caranqui". Retrieved 5 June 2012.