The Valdivia lived in a community that built its houses in a circle or oval around a central plaza and were sedentary people that lived off farming and fishing, though occasionally they went hunting for deer. From the remains that have been found, it has been determined that Valdivians cultivated maize, kidney beans, squash, cassava, hot peppers and cotton plants, the latter of which was used to make clothing.

Valdivian pottery initially was rough and practical, but it became splendid, delicate and large over time. They generally used red and gray colors; and the polished dark red pottery is characteristic of the Valdivia period. In their ceramics and stone works, the Valdivia culture shows a progression from the most simple to much more complicated works.

The trademark Valdivia piece is the "Venus" of Valdivia: feminine ceramic figures which were likely used in a variety of unknown rituals of fertility. The "Venus" of Valdivia likely represented actual people, as each figurine is individual and unique, as can be seen by the hairstyles. They were made joining two rolls of clay, leaving the lower portion separated as legs and making the body and head from the top portion. The arms were usually very short, in most cases were bent towards the chest, holding the breasts or under the chin.

The mission was the first time foreign scientists had been allowed to travel in the Spanish colonies of South America. Spain’s territories had been sealed from non-Spaniards for nearly two hundred years. The scientific mission set out to establish the shape of the Earth, since an argument had raged for several decades in Europe over its exact form, as well as to calculate the size of our planet.

In all, La Condamine spent nine years in Latin America. The mission definitively settled the argument that the Earth was flatter at the poles and bulged at the Equator. But due to these men of science’s insatiable curiosity, the mission also furthered scientific knowledge in many other ways, and brought many South American products to the attention of the world. For instance, La Condamine brought back detailed descriptions of the rubber plant and its uses; of the active form of quinine for the treatment of malaria; of the effects of the Earth’s magnetism; of the development of what became the Metric System for units of measure; as well as drawing the first accurate maps of the country with his Ecuadorian colleague, geographer and topographer Pedro Vicente Maldonado.

Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled to Latin America, exploring and describing it from a scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first scientists to propose that South America and Africa were once joined.

Humboldt and his companion Aimée Bonpland reached Quito in 1802, after a long journey through Colombia. Their stay there was marked by the ascent of the Pichincha and Chimborazo volcanoes. Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet on Chimborazo, a world record at the time. Through his attentive study of the volcanoes he encountered in Ecuador, he showed that they fell naturally into linear groups, presumably corresponding with vast subterranean fissures. This in turn, would lead to the theory of plate tectonics.