The pre-Columbian history of Costa Rica extends from the establishment of the first settlers until the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.
Archaeological evidence allows us to date the arrival of the first humans to Costa Rica to between 7000 and 10,000 BC. By the second millennium BC sedentary farming communities already existed. Between 300 BC and AD 300 many communities moved from a tribal, clan-centric organization – kinship-based, rarely hierarchical and dependent on self-sustenance – to a hierarchical one, with caciques (chiefs), religious leaders or shamans, artisan specialists and so on. This social organization arose from the need to organize manufacture and trade, manage relations with other communities and plan offensive and defensive activities. These groups established broader territorial divisions to produce more food and control wider sources of raw materials.
From the 9th century certain villages grew in size, and the latter-period chiefdoms of the 16th century came to develop greater social hierarchies and major improvements in infrastructure.
Ancient history
First settlers
The presence of humans in the Americas was a much later phenomenon than on other continents. The first humans are barely dated to around 40,000 to 50,000 BC, and it is suggested a later date. In any case, the concentration of ice over the continents during the last Ice Age caused the oceans to recede by about 120 meters (400 feet), allowing groups of hunters from northeast Asia to move eastward in pursuit of great herds of animals. They traveled to North America and settled there in several waves, and over the course of several millennia and through successive generations, the descendants of these hunters spread out throughout the Americas and her neighboring islands.
There is archaeological evidence that places the arrival of the first humans to Costa Rica between 7,000 and 10,000 BC. In the valley of Turrialba sites have been found in areas where quarry and tradesman tools such as bifaces were manufactured. It is thought that these first settlers of Costa Rica belonged to small nomadic groups of around 20 to 30 members bound by kinship, which moved continually to hunt animals and gather roots and wild plants. In addition to the species that still exist today, their usual prey animals included the so-called mega-fauna such as giant armadillos, sloths and mastodons.
Mesolithic Period
Around 8000 BC climatic changes brought about the end of the last Ice Age. The increase in temperature caused substantial changes in vegetation and saw the extinction of the mega-fauna, through either the disappearance of the plants they consumed, excessive predation by hunter or a combination of both. The hunter-gatherers had to develop strategies to adapt to new conditions, and they continued by hunting smaller species such as tapirs, collared peccary and deer. The new wealth of tropical vegetation, moreover, helped them to survive through all times of year.
It is thought that human groups remained small, about 30 to 100 members, organized in nomadic or semi-nomadic bands devoted to hunting and gathering. However, the knowledge of the local environment allowed them to plan their travels through different areas based on the periodic ripening of certain fruits and the growth of familiar plants (that would later form the basis of agriculture) as well as the availability of other resources. Along these familiar paths they could find temporary shelter under rock ledges, or establish outdoor camps with tapavientos (windbreaker walls based on the cipresillo tree) or other temporary structures.
Tradesman work areas, campfire pits and other fragmentary evidence of life in these groups have been found in the Turrialba valley and in various spots around Guanacaste. The manufacturing of specialized tools for various activities continued, and artifacts from this era such as scrapers, knives and spear tips display differences in form and size relative to those of the mega-fauna hunters.
Neolithic Period
By 5000 BC it became common to farm tubers and corn, as well as cultivate fruit trees and palm trees. Agriculture emerged slowly, stemming from knowledge of the annual cycles of nature and the progressive domestication of familiar plants. This development occurred over thousands of years and coexisted with traditional hunting and gathering, but it afforded a certain amount of stability. To ensure subsistence of these groups there had to exist forms of collective work and property, as well as egalitarian relationships.
Between 2000 BC and 300 BC, some communities of early farmers became egalitarian societies. The development of agriculture prompted changes in the relationship between humans and nature, and allowed them to feed many more people. Furthermore, the ever-growing dependence on agriculture compelled human groups to establish permanent settlements around agricultural fields. This led to stable villages of huts that had to be erected in clear areas of the forest. The agricultural system most likely employed was slash-and-burn: The forest would be cut with stone axes and spades then burned to prepare it for planting crops. Agricultural practices included vegeculture, semiculture or a combination of both.
Vegeculture (cultivation of plants on stakes) came about by farming tubers (yucas, yams, sweet potatoes) and diverse palms and trees (avocados, nances), in combination with hunting and fishing. This activity was very stable, since it demanded few nutrients from the soil, rarely caused erosion and could be developed in hilly areas. By such means, societies based on vegeculture would change very slowly.
In contrast to vegeculture, semiculture (cultivation of plants from seeds) had a greater effect on the environment, because it required more nutrients from the soil and caused greater erosion. In return, this system had a big advantage: it make food easier to store so that it could be made available all year, not just around harvest time. This led to larger societies where functions would be diversified. The primary semicultural activity was the production of corn, as well as associated plants such as beans and ayotes (a type of gourd related to the pumpkin).
Throughout the 2nd millennium BC there existed in Costa Rica small, disperse villages, non-nomadic agricultural communities that used ceramic bowls and utensils, and tools made from wood, bone and stone for agricultural tasks and food preparation. The oldest of these agricultural village communities (2000–500 BC) has been found in the province of Guanacaste. More recent ones (1500–300 BC) have been discovered in the Turrialba Valley, the coastal region of Gandoca, the northern plains, Sarapiquí Basin, Barva, Herradura, the Térraba River Basin, the Coto Colorado River Basin and Isla del Caño.
Societal evolution
Egalitarian societies
In the beginning, the social organization of these groups would've been of a tribal or clan-based nature, with egalitarian relationships between individuals and organizations, in clans or groups whose members were or would consider themselves to be descended from a common ancestry. Such ties would have served as a foundation for economic and political relations; the leadership would've been informal and ownership of goods would've been collective. However, agriculture, sendentarism and a broadening demographic would've prompted the formation of higher classes of society, and the advent of leaders who built organizations well-suited to manage food production and distribution, calm disputes and so on. Important figures such as the shaman (a kind of priest), physician and witch doctor would have overseen religious and spiritual life.
Early chiefdoms With dependency on agriculture came the need for efficient territorial control, to ensure the availability of suitable farmlands and improvement of productive techniques. Soil depletion and the consequent necessity to rotate crops, as well as a steady increase in the population, also made it essential to expand a group's sphere of territorial dominance. Almost inevitably, this brought about the rise of armed conflict with other groups.
Between 300 BC and 300 AD, many villager-egalitarian communities in Costa Rica moved from a tribal, clan-centric organization – kinship-based, rarely hierarchical and dependent on self-sustenance – to a villager-chief organization, with chiefs and elders, religious leaders or shamans, specialist artisans, people of hereditary power and so on. These chiefdoms likely arose from the need to organize production and trade, manage relations with other communities and plan offensive and defensive initiatives.
These chiefdom groups in general established territorial divisions that were more strongly demarcated than those in tribal times, and were able to expand their geographical spheres of domination to produce more food and control expanding sources of raw materials (forests, quarries, etc.). These groups also developed trading networks with other communities and regions.
Other villages grew and became centers of economic, political and religious power. Some studies refer to these new forms of organization as complex chiefdoms. The appearance of these types of chiefdoms also led to higher-level hierarchies, with principal villages and secondary towns. From around 300 BC there began to appear large villages with intrastructural works of various importance (foundations, roads and burial mounds), that indicate a certain centralization of authority and managerial capacity to mobilize communities for construction tasks. There might emerge a primary chief in the dominant village and as well as secondary chiefs in subordinate villages. Among the principal archaeological testaments to this era, it is fitting to mention diverse housing sites in the Nicoya Peninsula, housing structures at the sites of Severo Ledesma and Las Mercedes – and on the Atlantic side, other settlement ruins in Valle del General, as well as the Coto Brus, Coto Colorado and Térraba River basin.
Several archaeological sites in Guanacaste Province are linked to this period, particularly tombs covered in tons of stone. Similar funeral mounds have appeared in the canton of Grecia. In other places in the Costa Rican Central Valley and along the Pacific, archaeologists have uncovered housing plots delimited with rounded edges, mounds, clay floors and roads. In the south Pacific region are the famous stone spheres of Costa Rica, whose purpose is still a mystery, though it is suggested that they may have been symbols of rank or territorial markers, or had an astronomical function associated with cycles of agriculture.
There was a great development in the manufacture of objects made of jadeite or so-called "social" jade (green or off-white stones such as quartz, chalcedony, opal, serpentine, etc.). It is supposed that they were used as personal ornaments then later on in individual burial clothes, since most have been found at burial sites. Deep local tradition in jade-work (which began around 500 BC and continued until around AD 700 for the most part developed without external influence, although some pieces display features of Olmec and Mayan artisanship. Their motifs apparently had religious meaning. Burials from this period demonstrate the existence of rank and class, since burial offerings include artifacts made of jade and other green gemstones, ceremonial grinding stones, sceptre stones and elaborate ceramics. The number, quality and difficulty of obtaining these articles are a means of indicating the person's social rank.