Northern Andes 1000 BCE to 1000 CE

1000 BCE In the Sinú River area of northwestern Colombia, people settle permanently in small villages and engage in the cultivation of manioc (yucca). Ceramics are incised, punched, and stamped before firing at the site of Momil; simple solid animal and human figurines have rough, unslipped surfaces.

900 BCE The Narrío people of the southern Ecuadorian highlands carve small anthropomorphic figures of spondylus shell. Known by current Quechua inhabitants as ancestors (rucuyaya), the figures have deeply drilled eyes and are thought of as votive offerings for the dead.

800 BCE Chorrera ceramic vessels and sculptures reach new heights in the art of ceramic making. Realistically modeled animal and human figures are often made as bottles with single spouts and strap handles; many function as whistling jars. Surfaces are slipped in red, cream, and black, and frequently outlined by incision; iridescent and resist patterning is also extensively used.

700 BCE The ceramic vessels of the Ilama people of southwestern Colombia depict human figures and a wide range of local fauna. Known locally as alcarazas, the bottles have flaring spouts and globular chambers that are frequently joined by a strap handle.

600 BCE Manioc flour is prepared on flat griddles at the site of Malambo near the mouth of the Cauca River on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

500 BCE Controlling the important trade of spondylus shell from its source in Ecuador, Cerro Narrío is a powerful center with an extensive commercial network.

400 BCE Lifesize masks of hammered gold worked in repoussé are buried in the tombs of leaders by the Ilama people of the upper Calima River of southwest Colombia. Many masks have perforated eyes and mouths and could have been worn in life.

400 BCE The island site of La Tolita on Ecuador's Esmeraldas coast expands. Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines and masks in ceramic and carved shell, bone, and stone are thought to have been used in community rituals.

350 BCE Metals are being worked on the coast of northern Ecuador. While gold comes from alluvial deposits, copper is probably traded from the highlands in exchange for sea products, primarily spondylus shell.

300 BCE Molds for the production of large numbers of ceramic figurines are used in the Esmeraldas Province of northern Ecuador. Made of a gray, sandy clay by the peoples of La Tolita, the heads of human figures depict cranial deformation. The figures wear nose, ear, and neck ornaments.

200 BCE In the rich cemetery at Malagana near the modern town of Palmira in Colombia's Cauca Valley, the elite are buried in full sets of regalia made of gold and semi-precious stones. Grand diadems, pectorals, and arm and leg ornaments with repoussé decoration adorn the dead. Hundreds of gold necklace beads in myriad forms that include birds, insects, and human figures are worn. Many are made by the lost-wax casting technique.

150 BCE The Tolita/Tumaco peoples living in the area now at the border between Ecuador and Colombia bury their dead in artificial mounds, called tolas.

100 BCE Terraced platform mounds measuring approximately 530 by 150 feet at the base are built by Bahía people at Manta on the central coast of Ecuador's Manabí Province. It is probably an important ceremonial site.

100 BCE  Flat and roller seals and spindle whorls made of ceramic are produced in quantity by the Jama Coaque peoples of coastal Ecuador. Ornamented with diverse images, from abstract geometric designs to human and animal patterns, they are taken as evidence of a textile tradition.

100 CE Ceremonial mounds at the site of La Tolita, on Ecuador's Esmeraldas coast, surround a plaza that is 570 feet wide on three sides. The site covers 0.8 square miles with a population of about 5000 people, including a ruling class, artisans, and farmers.

150 CE The Jama Coaque people occupy the coastal lowlands of the northern Manabí and southwest Esmeraldas provinces. Close contact with neighbors to the north and south is reflected in ceramic figurines made in molds. Elaborate costumes and ornament details are worked in clay appliqués. Ritual vessel forms include three-dimensional house models and headrests.

200 CE Tolita/Tumaco goldsmiths work platinum by sintering, a process by which small particles of platinum are added to molten gold; the compound is subsequently beaten into malleable sheet.

300 CE The power of the chiefdom of San Agustín in the Andes of southern Colombia extends over an area of about 200 square miles. Earthen mounds cover small tombs lined with stone slabs. Monumental stone guardians feature fanged human figures holding clubs and trophy heads.

300 CE The Zenú people of Colombia's tropical Caribbean coast construct raised fields and extensive canal systems to drain floodplains. Gold is extensively worked in the area. Lost-wax casting is primarily used for the production of pendants, nose and ear ornaments, and staff heads.

350 CE The ceramic vessels of the Guangala culture in the south of Ecuador's Manabí Province are decorated with geometric patterns in red and black on cream-colored slip, similar to vessels from the Nicoya region in Costa Rica.

400 CE In central Manabí, the Bahía people make many hollow ceramic figures that are whistles or flutes, or depict individuals playing such instruments. Often painted in bright green, yellow, red, and white after firing, they are probably used in ceremonies.

400 CE Sophisticated metalwork by Ecuadorian specialists of the Bahía, Jama Coaque, and Tolita peoples includes large pectorals and masks of hammered sheet gold embellished with complex imagery done in repoussé. Objects combining gold, silver, and platinum are known.

450 CE Wealthy chiefs of the Yotoco people in the middle Cauca River region of Colombia are laid to rest with impressive gold ornaments and ritual implements; among them are large heart-shaped pectorals and flamboyant head pieces in sheet gold. Many feature repoussé faces with pendant ear disks, nose ornaments, and a multitude of dangles.

500 CE Tolima goldworkers of the middle Magdalena River area produce a distinctive pendant in which anthropomorphic and zoomorphic references are combined. The figure pendants have stylized human faces and splayed arms and legs of equal length and width, bent at the same angle and without anatomical details.

500 CE Tall ceramic amphoras of slender, oblong shape are made by the Tuncahuán peoples of highland Ecuador. Standing over two feet high, the amphoras are finished with geometric designs in negative patterns emphasized with red outlines.

500 CE Shaft tombs at La Florida, on the slopes of Pichincha Volcano near Quito, are forty-five to seventy-five feet deep. Multiple burials of seated persons bundled in textiles hold many offerings of ceramic, bone, and stone. Most of the textiles are cotton.

500 CE The important gold mining center of Buriticá, in the mountains of Colombia's northern Antioquia Province, exploits rich alluvial deposits and vein gold. Gold objects and raw gold are traded for food, salt, emeralds, and other items with peoples in the north, east, and south.

550 CE Full-time goldsmiths in Colombia's Sinú River area produce impressive ornaments for the chiefs of their Greater Zenú territory. Typical forms are large, hammered, crescent-shaped breast shields with repoussé decoration, and heavy cast staff finials worked in three-dimensional shapes of local fauna, particularly birds.

550 CE La Plata Island off the central coast of Ecuador houses the principal religious shrine of the Bahía peoples. Numerous ceramic offerings and large quantities of spondylus shells are deposited here as part of ritual activity.

600 CE Near Filandia in the middle Cauca Valley, important individuals are buried with lavish grave goods (now considered to be Quimbaya in style). Among them are magnificent hollow-cast gold flasks known as poporos. The bottles—some shaped as male and female nudes—contain powdered lime made from calcined seashells. The lime is added to coca leaves when chewed during rituals.

650 CE Deep shaft-and-chamber tombs at the sites of Chordeleg and Sigsig in the southern Ecuadorian highlands include Wari-style ceramics and metal objects. Those made of hammered gold and silver show the rayed heads of Wari supernaturals.

700 CE The people in the Tierradentro region of the upper Magdalena River bury their dead in impressive underground rooms cut into the living rock. Accessible by steep spiral staircases, also rock cut, the rooms are circular or oval in plan and up to twenty-one feet below the ground; the most elaborate have niches and square pillars as central supports. The walls are painted with geometric designs in black, white, red, and yellow.

750 CE The Capulí people of the highlands of northern Ecuador and southern Colombia (province of Carchí and department of Nariño respectively) make resist-decorated ceramic figures and vessels; typical are seated female figures with their legs extended forward and males on stools with coca quids in their cheeks.

800 CE The Piartal cemetery at Miraflores near the town of Pupiales covers about 2.5 acres. Multiple burials with rich offerings of ceramics and precious metal are placed in chambers about seventy feet below ground. The chambers have plastered walls painted red.

800 CE The inhabitants of Zipaquirá, Nemocón, and Tausa north of Santa Fe de Bogotá, an area with extensive salt deposits, use earthenware vessels called gachas, to evaporate water from salt. Salt blocks are traded for gold from as far away as 200 miles along the Magdalena River.

850 CE The Manteño, the dominant group of Ecuador's central and southern coast, use stone to construct house foundation walls and build canals and dig wells up to forty feet deep. To provide arable land for growing populations, they terrace ravines and mountain slopes.

850 CE The chiefdom of Dabeiba, east of the Atrato River in northwestern Colombia, controls the trade route from Urabá to Cartagena. Professional merchants exchange coastal products for gold objects and raw metal from the Greater Zenú region and Antioquia.

900 CE The fertile basins in the high mountains of the eastern Andes in central Colombia are inhabited by the Muisca people, who produce large numbers of votive offerings called tunjos. Cast of tumbaga, a gold alloy containing as much as 70 percent copper, many depict human figures and animals. Items of daily use such as weaving implements, weapons, and cradles with babies are also made. Tunjos are buried or thrown into sacred lakes as offerings to deities.

900 CE Tall ceramic amphoras, known as pondos, with slender, oblong containers and rounded bottoms, are produced in the Tuncahuán area of Ecuador. They are embellished with a variety of geometric designs in negative technique with added details in red paint. The vessels are widely distributed in the northern highland provinces of Carchí and Imbabura.

950 CE Piartal metalworkers produce individual works not related to other styles in the area. Sizable nose ornaments made of hammered sheet, often of low-gold-content tumbaga, display an infinite variety of geometric cut-out forms with free-swinging dangles.

 1000 CE In the Ecuadorian highlands south of Quito, Panzaleo potters add mica to clay, allowing them to produce vessels with remarkably thin walls. Large jars in the shape of human figures are characteristic. Rotund bodies—up to twenty-eight inches in diameter—form the containers, while the modeled heads serve as spouts. The faces invariably bulge with a coca quid in one cheek.