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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In any case, they usually had access to goods that were especially valuable because they were difficult to obtain or manufacture; and they were distinguished from other natives by their prominent living quarters within the villages, as well as the more elaborate funeral rites and offerings their status afforded.
At the start of this period, Mesoamerican cultural groups began to trickle over the Nicoya Peninsula, principally the Chorotega people, who subordinated, displaced or mixed with populations that had previously settled in the Nicoyan territory.
The most well-known archaeological site of this kind is Guayabo in Turrialba, which contains raised mounds with walls of stone, access ramps and pedestals, as well as aqueducts, elevated platforms, circular and rectangular foundations, paved walkways and other structures.
The traditional view that divides this territory between the Chorotegas, Huetars and Bruncas has been abandoned, since these names in fact only identified a small part of the nations that existed in Costa Rican proper at the time.
According to several documents from the second half of the 16th century, the Nahua colony in Sixaola had been founded by tributary groups sent by the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II, who were driven there during the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlán and decided to stay there.
The members of the monéxico were perhaps the same individuals previously mentioned as galpones – since the buildings where the council met were known by that name (surely derived from the term "calpulli") – that were assigned to a neighborhood, village or district among the indigenous people of Mexico.
On the Chorotegan community of Nagrando (Nicaragua), Fernández de Oviedo wrote: It was not governed by a chieftain or sole elder, but rather in a communal manner by a certain number of elders elected by vote; and those same would affect a captain general for affairs of war, and after he with the others ruled their state when one died or was killed in a battle or confrontation, they would elect another, and sometimes those same would kill each other if one were found to be an inconvenience to the republic.For his part, the chronicler Francisco López de Gómara indicates: [Between the indigenous peoples of Nicaragua] there could not be a committee or council, especially in warfare, without the chieftain or captain of the republic and assumptive village.
These elders, whose activities the Spaniards compared to the Christian confessional, had private consultations, made recommendations to someone who sought his help, and allotted such penances as sweeping the plazas or gathering firewood for the temples.
The available data regarding the normative organization of the Chorotegan people indicate that from the point of view of Western jurisprudence, it was a system of minimal complexity based on precedence, with minor infractions and few sanctions.
Before the wedding, both bride and bridegroom would receive a dowry from their respective parents, which may have included, in accordance with a family's economic means, arable land, a dwelling, cocoa beans, jewelry, animals, fruits, etc.
When Fernández de Oviedo reprimanded chieftain Nambí for continuing to have several wives and continuing to spend many nights with virgin women despite being baptized, the Nicoyan chief protested: ... that in [the affairs] of women, he did not want more than one, if it were possible; that he would be content with one rather than many; but that his fathers gave their daughters and begged him to take them; and he would take others who looked good to him, and he would be successful by having many sons; and that of the young virgins, he took them to honor them and their relatives, and then the other Indians would be willing to marry them ...The wedding ceremony was carried out in the presence of the chieftain and the families of the engaged.
Also, references survive regarding a peculiar matrimonial practice of the Nicaraos, that may have also existed between the Chorotegans: A woman would engage in prostitution to obtain a dowry, congregate afterwards with her clients, ask that they build her a house within a certain time period and tell them that each one had to contribute.
Presiding over the markets were judge-administrators elected once every four months by the monéxico, according to Fernández de Oviedo: ... the first thing one does in the city councils, is determining faithful executors for another four months, who all, or at least one of them, never leaves the plaza and tianguez or market: and those faithful leaders are mayors and absolute governors within those places, to allow sellers neither force nor improper measure, nor giving of less than what was to be given or exchanged in their sales, nor fraud: and they punish without remission some of the transgressors by his decrees and customs, and to strangers they offer courtesy and welcome, because they always come more by their hiring.Although barter played an important role in trade, Chorotegans used cacao beans as currency.
For example, in 1562 the town hall of the recently founded city of Castillo de Garcimuñoz, located in the Central Valley, wrote to King Philip II that the natives of Costa Rica imitated Peruvian dress and contracting practices.
There were commercial ties, vassalages and alliances between many of the communities in the Intermediate Area of Costa Rica, but there was no sole authority in the entire territory; rather, a multitude of societies with different levels of complexity.
In Spanish documents appear mention of a great number of native groups: Aoyaque, Burica, Cabécar, Catapa, Chome, Corobicí, Coto, Guaymí, Huetar, Pococi, Quepo, Suerre, Tariaca, Térraba, Tice, Turucaca, Urinama, Viceita, Voto.
However, the territory of the Intermediate Area was not visited by chroniclers such as Fernández de Oviedo and missionaries such as Bobadilla, and the data that exists regarding these peoples' religious and judicial lives is exceptionally scant, isolated, and fragmentary.
In the 16th century, it appears in the Intermediate Area that a scattered type of settlement prevailed, defined by the existence of hamlets composed of two or three very large, communal ranches, whose inhabitants cultivated the enclosed fields.
Although in certain places like Guayabo there remain archaeological testaments to the existence of larger settlements, there appears to have been a lesser tendency for communities to urbanize than in the Nicoyan region, perhaps because nomadic and seminomadic cultivation compelled these groups to slowly move around.
It has been customary that the heir apparent, the future successor, was second in position or vice-chieftain, with little or no authority.It is known that in some villages a woman could be the chieftain: In 1562, a Spanish captain who visited the Voto community was "well received by an Indian chieftainess of theirs and by her husband who ruled little among them."
The Costa Rican chieftains in the Intermediate Area had greater powers than those of Nicoya; for example, when Correque moved his residence from Ujarrás to Tucurrique, he brought with him many elders and gentlemen along with their sons, "because the place he wanted was settled and nobody contradicted him."
In some communities, the effective authority of the chieftains must've been lesser still, as for example the writings of Gabb in the latter half of the 19th suggest regarding the natives of Talamanca: In ancient times the chiefs exercised no more than a nominal power over the town.
A German missionary stated at even at the start of the 20th century, there remained between these same Bribris a type of marriage with barely any formalities, but in which the mother of the bride played an important role: The suitor is presented at his fiancée's home.... "I have come to spend the night," he says.
The marriage is no longer discussed, as it is considered done.As with other matrimonial systems, in the Intermediate Area of Costa Rica the wife may have had a position in the family equal or even superior to that of the husband, as demonstrated in the case of the chieftainess of the Votos.
In the Costa Rican Intermediate Area there must have prevailed collective systems of work and ownership of arable land, though there were positions of privilege for people belong to the upper social strata.