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As in the Central Highlands-Atlantic Watershed zone, important cultural changes occurred in Diquis between 500 and 800 A.D., seeming to indicate an influx of South American peoples and/or cultural traditions, possibly the arrival and eventual hegemony of Chibcha-speaking peoples from Colombia. In their survey of the Terraba (Diquis) drainage, Drolet and Markens found that Chiriqui-phase sites were most often located on broad terraces just above major water courses, suggesting a more intensive utilization of the major rivers in later times. While increased travel and commerce along these mostly navigable rivers were probably a factor, the extraordinary amounts of river cobbles used in the construction of Chiriqui-pase sites must also have played a part in the shifting pattern of settlements. Several kinds of sites are known for Period Vl. Special burial grounds often incorporating cobble platforms and walls, as in the case of Sabana de Caracol, have been found on the summits of rather large hills. Cemeteries, rich in cast gold pendants and other metal artifacts, were discovered along high, sharp ridges, today overgrown with rain forest (e.g., the Coquito cemetery). A second class of sites seemingly combined ceremonial and perhaps funerary activities with habitations. Finca Remolino incorporates large, low, stone-faced platforms of many shapes, including quadrangular ones, interspersed with what seem to be house mounds. On, or alongside, the platforms were embedded large natural monoliths (of columnar basalt) up to four meters in length, some pecked to a pointed end for easier insertion. A third kind of site seems to been primarily habitational, with circular house foundations of cobbles, terraces with retaining walls, and cobble-paved walkways. This kind of site is most frequently found along major rivers; almost all have associated cemeteries on terraces above the habitation zones .
Murcielago, a very large site (almost 4 square kilometers) of the third kind, has circular house foundations, 12 to more than 20 meters in diameter, surrounded by a gently sloping pavement of river cobbles. Although many manos and metates were found outside the houses, most chipped and pottery refuse was apparently deposited in unusual features composed of yellow and red oxidized subsoil rocks, which surround the houses. Whether these features were activity areas or dumps is unclear, but they were placed systematically throughout the site. A complex system of pavements and ramps connected living areas in any one part of the site. These new, important settlement data for Diquis, along with the previously known stone cist tombs, make up an "architectural" complex much like that known from the Central Highlands-Atlantic Watershed during Periods V and VI, and we may assume that both zones experienced the same pervasive "southern" influence during that time. In addition to stone cist tombs. we know that shaft-and-chamber tombs continued to be constructed into the Chiriqui phase. There is a fairly large range of pottery types known from Diquis during the last six or seven hundred years before the Spanish arrival. Tall, hollow-legged tripods, slipped in reddish brown and usually decorated with appliqué fillets, pellets, adornos, or white-painted lines, recall somewhat similar (but earlier) vessels of the Atlantic Watershed In Diquis, the tripod legs are often in the form of crocodiles or fish. Organic black resist decoration, often combined with positive red paint, adorns white or orange-slipped small ollas, in patterns recalling Panamanian, and especially Columbian, ceramics. It is significant that small cylindrical, capped phials, of the kind used among Colombian cultures to carry lime for chewing with coca leaves, appear in Diquis in this ceramic type, since coca-chewing is a South American trait.
Chiriqui Polychromes are usually executed in black and red on a cream slip, with simple geometric motifs. While Panamanian motifs seem to dominate, there was some stylistic influence from northwestern Costa Rica, and a few Nicoya polychrome trade sherds have been found in Diquis. As in the rest of Costa Rica during Period VI, tripod supports shaped like animal (mostly feline) heads are diagnostic for this time in Diquis. Perhaps the pinnacle of the ceramic craft in Period VI Diquis was the Tarrago Biscuit. This fine, buff-colored pottery may have walls less than two millimeters thick, and displays supremely simple yet elegantly proportioned shapes. Tiny modeled adornos frequently emphasize the voluptuous forms. Zoomorphic effigies include what is almost certainly an American camelid (llama, guanaco), an animal whose natural habitat extends only as far north as the Colombian Andes Diquis stone sculpture of Period VI is radically different from that of the other two zones of Costa Rica, and, at the same time, reminiscent of Colombian forms. A link with the Atlantic Watershed is found in the tetrapod jaguar metates and circular "Atlantean" varieties that appear in both zones; ceramic models of the latter kind probably served as seats. Large stone spheres have been found around Chiriqui phase cemeteries.
Periods V and VI witnessed a florescence of the metallurgical craft, which produced quantities of pendants, bracelets, plaques, headbands, and other articles of gold or tumbaga. The Diquis gold-working style is basically the same as that of Chiriqui. Next »
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