![\"Ancient](\"https:\/\/soulofamerica.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CR-Museo_Nacional_Spheres.jpg\")
Ancient discuss spheres made by indigenous people, Costa Rica National Museum<\/strong><\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Costa Rica History begins the indigenous people belonging to overlapping Mesoamerican and Andean native cultures. Stone tools, the oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica, are associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers about 10,000 to 7,000 years BC in the Turrialba Valley. <\/p>\n Agriculture became evident in the area now called Costa Rica about 5,000 years ago. They mainly grew tubers and roots. About 2000 BC, farming communities emerged. These were small and scattered, although the timing of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the main livelihood in the territory is still unknown.<\/p>\n The earliest use of pottery appears over 2,000-3,000 BC. Shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds and other forms of vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modelled after animals, have been found.<\/p>\n Much later, the impact of indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations. You won’t see major Mayan temples here, since the country lacked a strong native civilization. Most of the native population absorbed Spanish-speaking colonial society through inter-marriage. The small exceptions were Bribri and Boruca tribes who inhabit the mountains of southeastern Costa Rica.<\/p>\n The Spanish name La Costa Rica, meaning “rich coast”, was attributed to Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the east coast of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502. He reported vast quantities of gold jewelry worn by natives, which of course, attracted the Spanish Conquistadors. Alternatively, the Costa Rica name may have come from Spanish Conquistador Gil Gonz\u00e1lez D\u00e1vila, who landed on the west coast in 1522. He encountered indigenous people and obtained some of their gold by violent theft or gift from local leaders.<\/p>\n The Ujarr\u00e1s historical site in the Oros\u00ed Valley features a church built between 1686 and 1693. In the 1700s colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of Guatemala, a Viceroyalty of New Spain. Costa Rica’s distance from the capital in Guatemala, Spanish prohibition from trade with its southern neighbor Panama, and getting sacked for its earlier gold and silver, made it a poor and sparsely-inhabited region within the Spanish Empire.<\/p>\nCosta Rica History<\/h2>\n