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Period I (12,000-8000 B.C.) A workshop site from this period was recently discovered on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Central. Called Turrialba, it shares with Madden Lake, another Paleo-lndian site near the Panama Canal, the distinction of having yielded two distinct types of chipped-stone spear points used by hunters of the Pleistocene megafauna 10,000- 12,000 years ago. One is a variation of the Clovis-point type, known throughout North America, while the other, the so-called fishtail, or Magellan point, was typical of paleo-hunters in South America. Costa Rica and Panama seem to for m the border between the spatial distributions of these two well-known classes of Paleo-lndian points. Even at that early date, this part of Central America functioned as a buffer or transitional zone between important cultural traditions on the two American continents. Periods II (8000 - 4000 B.C.) and III (4000 - 1000 B.C.) No sites can yet be placed in these periods with certainty, although one site has chipped-stone tools and debris much like that found in certain Pacific Panamanian sites of the Tropical Forest Archaic (Period II). Period IV (1000 B.C. - 500 A.D.) The earliest securely radiocarbon-dated pottery known in Costa Rica is the La Montana complex, from a site of the same name in the Turrialba valley. Five C-14 dates from the site range from 1500 to 300 B.C., clustering around 500 B.C. La Montana-phase pottery, almost entirely monochrome, is well made and has a fairly wide range of forms; it was almost certainly preceded by earlier ceramics. In general, it resembles pottery dating to 2000-1000 B.C. from northern South American sites like Barlovento, Colombia. This impression is strengthened by the presence of flat, rimmed griddles (budares), which are associated with the processing of bitter manioc or cassava in Colombian, Venezuelan, and Brazilian archaeological sites. Since they, and an unusual beveled type of mano, do not appear again in the Atlantic Watershed archaeological sequence, it is possible that La Montana peoples were the last to rely on root and tree crops as food staples (a carbonized avocado seed was found with La Montana deposits). In 1977, the year La Montana was discovered, a very different-looking pottery came to light in the San Carlos region of the northern lowland plains. Called the Chaparron complex, it is a distinctly zoned bichrome pottery, characterized by a hard, glossy, red slip separated from the polished-brown or buff clay surface by wide incised lines. The Chaparron complex is most like the Conchas-phase ceramics (Middle Preclassic) from the Pacific coast of Guatemala both in form - tecomates, or in-curving, restricted-mouth bowls, predominate - and in decoration. Chaparron form and decoration suggest that it is nearly contemporaneous with La Montana. If so, Chaparron might represent a northern, Mesoamerican influence in Costa Rica, while La Montana most closely resembles southern styles. The period 500-100 B.C. is still poorly known, although pottery probably dating to this time has been found at several sites. From c. 100 B.C. to 200 A.D., there was a veritable explosion of sites (i.e., population) and a trend toward social stratification, evidenced by a new series of high-status artifacts-elaborate metates, ceremonial mace heads, carved jade or similar stone, flutes, rattles, and, undoubtedly, a wide range of objects in perishable wood (staffs, drums, etc.), cloth, and bone. Sites of the El Bosque (middle Atlantic Watershed) and Pavas (Central Highlands) phases, dating from c. 100 B.C.-500 A.D., are numerous and large.
Contact with more developed Mesoamerican cultures c. 600-200 B.C., probably through elite-oriented trade, may have resulted in the gradual propagation in northern Costa Rica of a new mythic complex, or politico-religious "world view," in which different deities, a reverence for jade amulets, and possibly intensive maize agriculture were important components. The popularity of zoned red-on-buff pottery, common in Mesoamerica, but rare in northern South America, can perhaps be traced to this interaction. The population boom may have been produced by successful, intensive maize farming, producing increasing competition for prime agricultural lands, and a need to ritualize cyclical agriculture procedures. Warrior, priest, and administrative classes probably evolved to handle related duties, creating a market for luxury articles that were badges of office. It should not be assumed that a Mesoamerican-type mythology obviated other belief systems. The predominance of toad, lizard, and especially cayman effigies is important, if one accepts Donald Lathrap's association of cayman symbols with manioc farming in South America. A patina of Mesoamerican symbolism may have combined with earlier tropical-forest animist beliefs, resulting in the menagerie of zoomorphic adornos, or ornaments, typical of Central Highlands Atlantic Watershed pottery. Recent archaeological excavations by the MNCR have provided considerable information on house forms, tomb constructions, and associated artifacts. At Severo Ledesma, near Guacimo, in the eastern lowlands, three El Bosque phase houses were found. The two smaller ones were 3.5 x 12-meter rectangles, delimited by river cobbles stood on end; a perishable structure of wood, cane, and thatch was probably erected on this foundation, but no trace of it remains. Each house had two cobbles with cup-shaped depressions placed along one wall; these may have been mortars or receptacles. Numerous fragments of metates and other stone tools surrounded the houses, and several simple burials, excavated in the subsoil, were also associated. In the rainy Caribbean climate, no bones are preserved; burials are recognized by the tomb edifice and/or grave goods, mostly pottery.
Carbonized palm nuts of the species Elaeis oleifera HBK, an American oil palm related to the commercially important African oil palm, were found within this house, and a maize cob was found in another part of the site. No houses of the contemporary Pavas phase in the Central Highlands have yet been recognized, but there are considerable data on subsistence. During salvage excavation of a later architectural site at Barrial de Heredia, a deep trench bisected a large conical pit (two meters in diameter at the base and two meters deep) containing broken Pavas culinary pottery, stone tools, and a carpet of carbonized floral remains. Although botanical analysis is still in progress, it is known that the feature contained thousands of maize kernels; five maize-cob fragments, similar to Swasey 1 and 2 types from Cuello, Belize; several pieces of unidentified nuts or hard-shelled fruits; unidentified erect rhizomes; and several desiccated, pitted "cherry-like" fruits. Also present were one - perhaps two - varieties of Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean) that are "closer to Mesoamerican than Andean types," as well as seeds of the Convolvulaceae family, which includes both sweet-potato and morning-glory species. The final identification of these seeds will be revelatory; if the former, a new cultigen will be added to the Costa Rican prehistoric subsistence complex, while the presence of the latter would be hard evidence for psychotropic drugs, a tradition well documented in other Precolumbian cultures and indirectly indicated by El Bosque-phase clay double-tubed nasal snuffers. When he first identified conical features at the type site of Pavas, a San Jose suburb, Aguilar referred to them as "bottle-shaped tombs" because their contents included human skeletal remains and whole ceramic artifacts. Nevertheless, a case can be made for classifying them as "bell-shaped" storage pits, associated with the domestic-activity zone surrounding a dwelling, as in the Formative Mesoamerican pattern. Marcus Winter notes their occurrence from the Valley of Mexico to Guatemala City, and emphasizes their almost universal use as maize-storage pits, which, upon abandonment, were often "filled with household debris including burnt daub, ashes, carbonized corn cobs and fruit seeds, animal bones, cooking pots and discarded manos and metates; some also had burials." Other Pavas-phase burials were unmarked except for associated grave goods, so mortuary patterns varied. El Bosque-phase tombs may be one- or two-meter rectangles of cobbles;
ellipses; corridors up to 12 meters long; or simply a scooped-out oval area in
the subsoil, with no tomb edifice. Tombs in separate cemetery zones always have
walls of cobbles and are usually long rectangles, often ordered neatly in ranks
and files; these tombs repeat, on a smaller scale, the shape and proportions of
El Bosque houses.
Chipped-stone artifacts are rare in El Bosque and Pavas deposits, but daggers of slate or fine basalt were produced by this technique. Pecked and ground-stone tools abound; mostly andesite, they are usually related to food processing or agriculture. Petaloid and trapezoidal celts, most with signs of hafting, are found frequently. Other ground-stone artifacts include bark-beaters, pestles, mortars, edge-battered cobbles, crude mace heads (probably weapons), loaf- and stirrup-shaped manos, and several kinds of metates. Loaf-shaped manos and basin- or trough-shaped metates, the typical maize-processing tools in prehistoric Mesoamerica, are found most frequently. Flat, tripod metates with raised rims and stirrup-shaped mullers are found less often and in contexts that sometimes suggest nondomestic roles - the preparation of special, ceremonial foodstuffs or drugs. Since the edges of these metates are carved in the shape of small heads, the taking and shrinking of trophy heads by warriors in battle seems to have been connected with them.
Ceramics of the El Bosque complex in the Central Atlantic Watershed are most often red on buff with polished dark-red lips, interiors, and bases, and a collar of naturally buff-colored clay, smoothed, but left exposed around the vessel shoulder and neck. This area may be blank or decorated by a series of tool-impressed techniques, applique motifs, or painted linear patterns. Shell and reed stamping, combing, scarifying, fluting, pattern burnishing, and applique pellets and adornos are some of the decorative techniques found in El Bosque pottery. There are also red- and orange-slipped vessels with maroon paint. El Bosque pottery may be baroque, with piled-on applique, or exquisitely elegant and simple. Technically, the pottery is very well made, showing a dominance of the ceramic craft that disappears in later periods.
Pavas-phase pottery of the Central Highlands is modally similar to El Bosque, but orange slip and maroon paint predominate. Vessels are generally larger. Whereas the Ticaban tripods of the El Bosque phase are rather massive solid-leg vessels with zoomorphic adornos on each suppor, Pavas-phase ceramics of the Molino Channeled type are usually more graceful. Small, rotund figurines in a variety of domestic and ceremonial poses are frequent El Bosque-phase finds. Men with feathered capes, large headdresses, and zoomorphic masks, sometimes holding trophy heads, give a glimpse into complex ceremonial life. Women are portrayed holding children or carrying burdens on a tumpline. Animals are shown in naturalistic postures; what look like small dogs are often bicephalic. Most of these hollow figurines (the so-called Santa Clara type) double as rattles and may be finished with black, white, or yellow fugitive paint; red-slipped varieties also occur. Other special-purpose ceramic artifacts include maracas; small rattles made with rings, to be worn on the fingers; ocarinas, flutes, and whistles, of various forms; flat and rolled stamps or seals (probably for body painting or cloth imprinting); and single- or double-tubed pipes - the last were probably used for inhaling drugs. Five C-14 dates for the El Bosque phase range from 50 B.C. to 425 A.D. Next »
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The third El Bosque house was also rectangular, but
much larger, 15 x 2.5 meters; because it was divided into rectangular segments
by interior stone foundations, it may have been two adjoining structures. In any
case, it housed people of a higher rank. The interior beneath the floor was
honeycombed with burials and caches; one of the former contained an individual
with a necklace of jade disk beads, surrounded by 27 pieces of grave furniture
that included the plate of a "flying-panel" metate, fancy ceramic tripods
decorated with animal and human modeled effigies, pottery ocarinas and rattles,
and ground-stone celts. 
Groups of 15 to 30 or more tombs, separated from other groups
by empty corridors, may have corresponded to different lineages or clans.
Although no bones or even teeth have been recovered, it seems that most burials
were of the primary extended type; jade pendants, found face up in the bottoms
of some tombs, were probably suspended around the neck of the deceased. Some El
Bosque cemeteries cover several acres and contain hundreds of tons of
volcanic-stone cobbles brought from river beds anywhere from 50 meters to
several kilometers distant.
Metates are also employed as a funeral bier in the
most prestigious tombs; the body is laid out on two or three of them placed side
by side. Many of the extraordinary "flying-panel" examples may have been
manufactured especially for high-rank burial. An exceptional burial of this kind
was found in a salvage excavation at Tibas. Besides artifacts of jade, stone,
and pottery from both the Central Highlands and Guanacaste-Nicoya, it contained
a remarkable large Olmec jade clam shell (33 centimeters), with low relief on
the interior showing a human hand holding a mythological composite animal, half
feline, half moth. It is the only Olmec jade recovered in controlled excavations
in Costa Rica. 
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