Pre-Columbian Colombia
Colombia’s indigenous culture is one of the most important elements of its heritage. The initial building blocks for the future Colombian nation were the same as for its Latin American neighbors: Amerindian peoples, European conquerors and colonizers, and Africans arriving as slaves. During three centuries of Spanish colonial rule, these elements were unevenly combined into a new multiethnic society. The Europeans and their descendants enjoyed a predominant share of political influence, economic wealth, and social prestige, while the Amerindians were assimilated or marginalized and inexorably reduced to subordinate status. The latter was also true of Afro-Colombians, even when they escaped from slavery. Yet for most of the colonial population, Spain’s control was light, and it was maintained less by force than by the mystique surrounding the monarchy and by the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which established a strong institutional base and acted as cultural and ideological arbiter.
It is not known when the earliest humans reached what is now Colombia. The oldest evidence of occupation, which is pending confirmation, dates from before 20,000 BC, at sites in the central Andean highlands, but the first native peoples undoubtedly arrived earlier, coming presumably by way of the Isthmus of Panama. Over succeeding millennia, there were further migrations and mutual cultural influences between different geographic regions of Colombia and not just Central America but the Caribbean, coastal Ecuador, and the Amazon region.
It is likely that settled, partly agricultural societies first arose in the northern Caribbean lowlands of Colombia by the second millennium BC. No single dominant native culture emerged. Rather, most of the original Colombians belonged to one or another of three major linguistic groups—Arawak, Carib, and Chibcha—and comprised a patchwork of separate cultures and subcultures. These indigenous peoples developed the cultivation of yucca in the lower elevations, maize at middle altitudes, and potatoes in the highlands. They practiced ceramic pottery and other crafts, with impressive achievements in the working of gold from alluvial deposits. And by the time of the Europeans’ arrival, they generally displayed the beginnings of both social stratification and a political system on the basis of chieftainships.
None of the native peoples developed a system of writing comparable to that of the Mayas, and much less would the Spaniards encounter a native empire such as that of either the Aztecs or Incas. By 1500 AD, the most advanced of the indigenous peoples were two Chibcha groups: the Taironas and the Muiscas.
The Taironas, who appear to have been fairly late arrivals from Central America, inhabited well-organized towns connected by roads on the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the far north of Colombia, rising just to the east of Santa Marta, Colombia’s oldest city. Politically, they had progressed beyond the stage of local chieftainships, forming two larger, and rival, confederations. They were also the only people to construct works of engineering such as stone temples and stone-paved roads.
By contrast, the Muiscas—based in the present departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá in the Cordillera Oriental—lived in dwellings scattered through the countryside, and their temples and palaces were of perishable materials. But Muiscas, of whom there were perhaps 600,000, were far more numerous than the Taironas and covered a wider territory, extending from the area of present-day Bogotá northeastward to Tunja and beyond.
As in the case of the Taironas, Muisca local chiefdoms had consolidated into two separate confederations. The Muisca territory also included Laguna de Guatavita, site of the fabled ceremony of El Dorado, the gold-dusted dignitary who plunged into the crater lake along with a rain of golden offerings. More than any other native people, the Muiscas have served as a model for later ideas of Colombia’s pre-Columbian civilization.
The quimbaya name was given by the Spaniards to several Indigenous communities that populated the territory now occupying the departments of Caldas, Risaralda, Quindio and Norte from the valley. Quimbayas belonged to the Carib linguistic family, though it is not known when they reached their places and it is believed that they disappeared in the tenth century.
Among the few known aspects of the organization quimbayas, it is known that they formed a community led by a cacique and developed agriculture, ceramics and goldsmith. The best Quimbayas goldsmiths stood out among all the peoples of Latin America for their excellent work of gold. A group in the community emerged which specialized in gold work, for which they used very advanced techniques. For their work they used gold, which came from mines of the region and also acquired by barter in important quantities. They also used copper, which they traded with Indigenous peoples of the current department Antioquia.
Quimbayas produced hundreds of pieces of goldsmithing in representing people, animals, plants and all kinds of ornaments. Among the best known pieces is the poporo quimbaya, a vessel for storing lime used in chewing of coca leaves. The pieces of jewelry and ceramic of the quimbaya are characterized by their elegance, simplicity and elaborate variety of proportion of shapes of different sizes and configuration.
Colombia is home to the largest collection of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in all of South America and they are all in one peaceful, mystical place – the towns of San Agustin and San José de Isnos in Huila, in the south of the country. Little is known about the communities who built the monuments in San Agustin. What is known is that the oldest remains of the culture stem from 3300BC. Around 700BC this culture had developed to such an extent that it was able to construct the statues that are its most remarkable remains.
San Agustín Archaeological Park stands in a wild, spectacular landscape. Gods and mythical animals are skilfully represented in styles ranging from abstract to realist. These works of art display the creativity and imagination of a northern Andean culture that flourished from the 1st to the 8th century. The monuments comprise one of the world’s largest cemetery or necropolis (which means “City of the Dead” in Ancient Greek) which is why they’re a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The cultural changes that took place from the 8th to the 1st century BC left the most iconic remains. In this period, the so-called Agustine culture, characterized by monumental lithic art thst dominated the area. Other findings from that time indicate this culture uphrld high standards of agriculture, ceramics and goldsmithing. However, who these people were, where they came from, what the exact purpose of the gigantic sculptures was, and to what extent the culture was connected to other known cultures that lived in the area at the time, remains unknown.
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