ArchaeoCostaRica.com MENU: [ Home ] [ Introduction To The Archaeology of Costa Rica ] [ Region: Guanacaste-Nicoya ] [ Region: Highlands-Atlantic Watershed ] [ Region: Diquis Delta ] [ Conclusions ] [ Terminology ] [ Archaeologists ]

The northwest quarter of Costa Rica, on the Pacific side, forms a prehistoric cultural zone that will be referred to here as Guanacaste-Nicoya. Guanacaste is the name of the modern political province that includes long stretches of gently sloping inland plains that are today mostly divided into large cattle ranches, with some farming. The more mountainous, squared-off peninsula to the west is Nicoya. Both are part of what archaeologists call the Greater Nicoya Subarea, a Precolumbian cultural designation including part of western Nicaragua. Guanacaste-Nicoya is set apart from the rest of Costa Rica by relative aridity and marked seasonality. Its original cover of tropical dry forest is today mostly destroyed by agriculture and conversion to pasture, an alteration that began in Precolumbian times. Only .5-1 meter of rain falls each year, usually between May and December; some years not a drop of rain falls for four or even five months. Many small streams dry up, some trees lose their leaves, and the man-made grasslands turn brown and sere. Strong, dust-raising winds that buffer the countryside are responsible for this Verano, or dry season, as they rush the moist air from the Caribbean side over the plain and out into the Pacific before rain clouds have a chance to form. The broken Pacific coastline, with its numerous, small embayments and rocky headlands, also played a role in shaping Precolumbian cultures. Although only two bays (Santa Elena and Culebra) are large enough to shelter ocean-going craft from the gusty winds, they and the much larger Gulf of Nicoya provide myriad marine-estuary biotopes, environmental niches produced by reef formations, sand splits, and swampy, mangrove-filled backwaters, which are (or were, before overexploitation and pollution) hosts for an array of fresh and salt-water fauna, especially shellfish.

The long and partially navigable Tempisque River has formed, with its tributaries, a large and fertile alluvial plain between the Nicoya Peninsula and the line of volcanoes that marks the beginning of the Pacific watershed in Guanacaste. This region, heavily settled in Precolumbian times, together with receptive sections of the coast, formed the primary backdrop for indigenous cultural development in Guanacaste-Nicoya.

Next »