By early in the Common Era, a mosaic of polities ruled by hierarchies of local elites existed over most of northern South America in both the highlands and lowlands. Although details of this pattern varied through time, probably reflecting the waxing and waning of the power and influence of local lords, regional diversity and local political independence continued until the time of Spanish contact. There is no evidence that any of the polities developed state-level bureaucracies. Until the conquest of the Ecuadorian highlands by the Incas in the sixteenth century, there were no conquest states. At odds with the pattern of local independence and diversity are systems of symbolic imagery and linguistic relationships that point to a common cultural heritage and persistent contact over a large part of northern South America and Lower Central America.
Populations speaking Chacoan, Paezan, and Mis-umalpan languages occupied parts of Colombia and Panama, and Carib and Arawak speakers occupied northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela; however, Chibchan languages constituted the core and dominant language family of northern South America and their populations were distributed from Ecuador to Costa Rica at the time of Spanish contact. Bioanthropological studies also indicate that there was a high degree of genetic affinity among Chibchan speakers.
There were no ‘great art styles’ or religious iconographies that linked the pre-Hispanic populations of northern South America. Beginning around 700 CE, however, the use of gold and tumbaga as a medium for representing symbols of status and power became common throughout the region. Many of the gold objects were body adornments such as necklaces, breast plates, and nose ornaments, which signaled the status of the wearer (Figure 6). Although distinct regional styles emerged around 900 CE, common themes are shared among all of the styles, many of which can be traced back to images formerly represented in stone and pottery. The wide distribution of common themes may be explained in part by a widely shared ideology derived from a common cultural heritage, but some ethnohistoric evidence from Colombia and Panama suggests that local lords traveled to distant locations to acquire knowledge and brought back golden images and other objects to symbolize their command of esoteric knowledge and strengthen their authority at home. Early Hispanic chronicles also report that the native lords of the northern Ecuadorian and southern Colombian highlands retained exchange specialists known as mind-ales, who traveled long distances to acquire goods of high prestige for their lords. Archaeology attests to widespread distribution of precious metals, shells, emeralds, and other gem stones throughout northern South America.
The San Agustin culture of the upper Magdalena Valley in Colombia has long drawn the attention of archaeologists. San Agustin is best known for its megalithic carved images of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic creatures. Its iconography has been compared to that of the Chavin in Peru and the Olmec in Mexico, and sometimes used to support arguments that there was a direct historical connection between the two (see Americas, Central: The Olmec
And their Contemporaries). San Agustin, however, seems to be a largely independent development in Colombia, and beginning no earlier than the last century BCE, it postdates the development of Olmec
Figure 6 A gold icon in the Tairona style of northeast Colombia. (Photo courtesy of Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz. VA 62459)
And Chavin by nearly a millennium. San Agustin comprised several polities in the upper Magdalena region. Populations were concentrated near the clusters of stone statuary and were associated with burial mounds. The veneration of ancestors is a familiar theme in northern South America, a practice, as noted earlier, that can be traced back to the Early Holocene. It seems that the elite of the polities legitimized their status through claimed descent from real or mythical ancestors.
The Tairona culture, ancestral to the ethnographically documented Kogi of the Santa Marta Mountains in northeastern Colombia, exemplifies what some anthropologists have called theocratic chiefdoms. The Tairona built terraced sites interconnected with stone-paved pathways and stairways throughout mountainous landscape. Ciudad Perdida, hidden in the cloud forest, is the best known of the Tairona sites (Figure 7). Drawing on the studies of the Kogi, religion was probably the source of power and authority among the Tairona, and the leaders were probably priests. Ciudad Perdida and other similar sites would have served as ceremonial retreats managed by the priests and occupied only on ritual occasions.
Among the most important technological achievements of the people of the northern Andes was the development of raised-field agriculture. Thousands of hectares of swampy wetlands were converted to agricultural lands in the lower Sinti, Magdalena, and Guayas Basins through the construction of earthen ridges and platforms elevated above the floodwaters. Similar features were built in the Sabana de Bogotai
Figure 7 Ciudad Perdida, a site of the Tairona culture in the Sierra de Santa Marta, Colombia. Note the stone masonry and the terracing. (Photo by Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo)
For the purpose of raising the level of agricultural lands and for draining inundated areas. These highly productive fields greatly increased the carrying capacities in their respective areas and account for concentrations of populations in those areas.
There is little evidence of warfare in the archaeological record of northern South America. Some sites are situated on hilltops which would have served as good defensive locations, but evidence of fortifications or other hints of warfare is rare. We know from the early Spanish chronicles, however, that warfare was rampant within the region. Despite their common heritage and shared ideologies, many polities seem to have been engaged in almost constant competition and warfare; yet, there is little evidence of territorial expansion. It has been said that leaders use warfare to remind their subjects of the need for powerful leadership; perhaps the lords and chiefs of northern South America were using warfare as a political device, presaging the modern world.
World History
