Pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia

Owing to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica and the Caribbean to the Andes and Amazon basin.

The oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley 100 kilometres (62 mi) southwest of Bogotá.

Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes at the El Abra, Tibitó and Tequendama sites near present-day Bogotá traded with one another and with other cultures from the Magdalena River Valley.

Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Zenú, Quimbaya, and Tairona developed the political system of cacicazgos with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques.

[8] The Sinú or Zenú culture was located in northwest Colombia (departments of Sucre and Córdoba) and its recognized by their utilitarian and ritual ceramics and goldsmith in which they combined several techniques.

[9] The Quimbaya inhabited regions of the Cauca River Valley between the Western and Central Ranges of the Colombian Andes (current-day departments of Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío).

This culture is recognized by their goldsmith, which, among other things, produced poporos (bottles for storing lime used in chewing of coca leaves) of gold.

They farmed corn, potato, quinoa and cotton, and traded gold, emeralds, blankets, ceramic handicrafts, coca and especially rock salt with neighboring nations.