They were believed to have a relatively egalitarian culture of sedentary people who lived mostly from fishing, though they did some farming and occasionally hunted for deer to supplement their diet.

From the archeological remains that have been found, it has been determined that Valdivians cultivated maize, kidney beans, squash, cassava, chili peppers and cotton plants.

Valdivian pottery, dated to 2700 BCE, initially was rough and practical, but it became splendid, delicate and large over time.

Ceramic phase A of the Valdivia was long thought to be the oldest pottery produced by a coastal culture in South America, dated to 3000-2700 BCE.

In the 1960s, a team of researchers proposed there were significant similarities between the archeological remains and pottery styles of Valdivia and those of the ancient Jōmon culture, active in this same period on the island of Kyūshū, Japan.

[6] In 1962 three archeologists, Ecuadorian Emilio Estrada and Americans Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers suggested that Japanese fishermen had gotten blown to Ecuador in a storm and introduced their ceramics to Valdivia at that time.

[6] Researchers argued that Valdivia ceramics (and culture) had developed independently, and those apparent similarities were a result simply of constraints on technique, and an "accidental convergence" of symbols and style.