Lifestyle Of Hunter-Gatherers (12000-2000 Bc)

Lifestyle of hunter-gatherers (12000-2000 BC)
a. The first settlers (12000-7000 BC)
According to the most accepted by archaeologists, the peopling of America was given by groups that came from Asia by the Bering Strait in the north of the continent about 12,000 years BC.These groups were nomads, and were organized into small bands, who traveled throughout the continent, seeking sites forhunting and gathering wild fruits. When traveling arrived in the territory now occupied by Costa Rica at a time estimated between 12,000 and 7,000 years before Christ, according to data collected to date.
These groups did not know agriculture, their diet was mainly based on the collection of wild plants and occasional hunting of large animals of the time or megafauna, such as the mastodon, themegatherium or giant sloth and giant armadillo glyptodont.
Hunter-gatherers living in camps in the open or natural rock shelters, which occupied seasonally. Archaeological evidence has been located in these occupations, for stone tools in the Valle de Turrialba and Guanacaste. The stone tools characteristic of this period consist among others, scrapers, knives, drills, scrapers, and especially thegrooved projectile point, which was a very efficient stone weapon in hunting.
b. Hunting-gathering to the first crop (7.000-2.000aC)
Between 7,000 and 2,000 years before Christ indigenous groups began to combine hunting and gathering with the first crops. The evidence for this period is sparse, and limited to areas of stone tool workshop and furnaces in Arenal (Guanacaste), and stone artifacts inTurrialba.The climatic changes that occurred about 7,000 years BC is believed caused the demise of the megafauna. Thus hunting became more diversified, including smaller species. The stone tools used were devoted to work in wood, bone, stone and food processing. It is considered that harvesting practices were crucial, and it is possible that the groups undertake seasonal rounds in certain areasdepending on the time of fruit ripening, occupying rocky shelters or camps open.
II. Livelihood Egalitarian Villager (2,000 BC-500 BC)
Data are available in the country of the presence of agriculture around 2,000 BC. Agriculture would radically change the Indian society, and which led to the establishment of permanent villages, the development of ceramics and social complexity, among others. Thereis evidence for the first and second millennium BC sedentary farming communities, small and scattered ceramic artifacts that had simple stone tools, aimed at farming and food processing.In Costa Rica, the emergence of agriculture was coupled with the development of ceramics, which would fill the need for new tools. The early pottery is characterized by its basic forms (pots, plates, bowls andother) decorated with techniques such as incised, stamped or patterned.
In the Greater Nicoya region and the Central-Pacific subregion during the same period (1500-500 BC), the presence of traces of corn, as well as manos and metates used for processing, said that the first agricultural occupations and potters used mainly seed cultivation. In this variant, the predominant corn as the main product,without ruling out the use of root crops and fruit trees such as complementary alternatives.
III. Villager lifestyle cacique (500 BC-1550 AD)

a. Transition from tribal society to society cacique (500 BC-300 AD)
The cacique village lifestyle has its roots in the changes caused by agriculture seeds. Between 500 B.C. and 300 A.D. the tribal farmers of the first groups began a shift toward a moreelaborate sociopolitical organization as were the chiefdoms.The chiefdom is characterized by greater differentiation and stratification between food producers (agriculture, hunting, fishing, gathering), skilled craftsmen and religious leaders and politicians. On the other hand, people in power need of material symbols to show its predominant position in the social hierarchy. For this reason they...