HISTORY

Pre-Columbian period.

Pottery Guanacaste, Middle Polychrome period (800-1200 AD).

On the left, vessel jaguar Nicoyan deified. On the right, two-tone mug with monkey motif (1200-1500 AD), found in the Tempisque Valley.

Pre-Columbian gold pieces, found in the Valle del General. Gold Museum, San Jose, Costa Rica.

Stone Ball (Chiriquí period from 800 to 1500 AD). National Museum of Costa Rica

The oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica is associated with the arrival of groups of hunter-gatherers around 10 000 - 7 000 years BC, with ancient archaeological evidence (making stone tools) located in the Valley Turrialba, in the presence of Clovis-type spear points (U.S.) and fishtail (South American), which opens the possibility that in this area converge two different traditions of specialized hunters.

The incipient agriculture appears to 5 000 BC, mostly given by tubers and roots. For the first and second millennia BC there were already settled farming communities, small and scattered, although the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the main means of livelihood in the area is still unknown.

By 2000-3000 BC, shows the use oldest known pottery, fragments of pots, cylindrical vases, plates, gourds and other forms of vases, decorated with incised or techniques such as grooves, patterns and modeled.

Between 300 BC and 500 AD, depending on the region, given the change of a tribal organization to a chiefdom society.

There is the construction of foundations with boulders, mounds, ovens, storage pits, and statuary. The corn is to establish itself as the main crop in some regions, while in others there is a mixed system, besides the use of coastal resources (fisheries) and hunting.

In this period appears the production and use of artifacts of jade and other green stones, ceremonial metates, stone finials rods and special ceramics, begins to use metal objects (copper and gold) especially in the Central Valley, Central and North Caribbean.

The panel called metates tripods are a sign hanging outstanding and unique Costa Rican pre-Columbian art, decorated with animal and human elements. Its manufacture began in the late part of this period (0-500 AD).

Between 300 and 800 AD first appear complex chiefdoms, with presence of large villages and infrastructure (bases, roads and burial mounds). There is the hierarchy of settlements, with major towns and secondary towns, with lineages of hereditary power and specialization of labor, with the appearance of a chief in the village primary and secondary villages subordinate chiefs.

From 800 AD until the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, there was an increase in the size and complexity of the internal design of the villages, and regional differences were accentuated. The presence of numerous cemeteries, simple and complex, massive infrastructure, diversity of household goods and luxuries, gold development, trade and regional conflicts over territory and resources chiefdoms are characteristic of this era. The social hierarchy includes key individuals as the chief and shaman (for example, or Awapa sukya among the Bribri, a physician of both body and spirit), and the common people made up of artisans and farmers. It starts the use of gold as a symbol of rank, especially in central and Great Chiriquí (Panama border), but also used in Guanacaste.

 In the Valley of Diquis starts making stone spheres typical of the region in the delta of the rivers Térraba and Sierpe, which postulates that were used as a symbol of rank and territorial markers. Other works include stone figures in the round of human and animal forms, as jaguar metates and anthropomorphic statues.

This period was rich in Aboriginal groups located throughout the territory, but not densely populated as were the Aztecs, Mayas or Incas. These groups were significantly reduced after the arrival of the Spanish Costa Rican territory as some refused to be submitted and were killed or sent to other countries.

Some historians have included the area currently consisting of the south and Atlantic South American country of influence due to the presence of groups speaking Chibcha languages. The province of Guanacaste became the southern border of Mesoamerica with the arrival of the Chorotegas for the period between 900 to 1000 AD.

Usually human settlements in this territory did not have the magnificence of the buildings and infrastructure stocks Aztecs, Mayas or Incas, however, served as a cultural bridge between South and North of the continent, and polychrome jewelry and crafts in clay, had a well-developed and beautiful result.