History
Archeologists know almost nothing about the various people who inhabited Costa Rica until about 1000 BC, though it is known that the area was a corridor for merchants and trading expeditions between the Mesoamerican empires to the north and the Andean empires to the south. Excavations of pottery, jade and trade goods and accounts of cultural traditions have shown that the pre-Columbian peoples of Costa Rica adopted liberally from both areas. When the Spaniards arrived in Costa Rica in the early sixteenth century it was inhabited by as many as 27 different groups or clans. Most clans were assigned names by the invaders, which they took from the cacique (chief) with whom they dealt. Many of these groups had affinities with their neighbours in Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south.
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