Search Results - Tairona

The Tairona people formed one of the two principal linguistic groups of the Chibcha family, and were pushed into submarginal regions by the Spanish colonial system during the 16th and 17th centuries. The indigenous Kogi, Wiwa, Ijka (Ifca) and Cancuamo people who live in the area today are believed to be direct descendants of the Tairona. Etymological similarities of the work Tairona survive in the four main linguistic groups of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta in Sanca Language it is pronounced Teiruna, in Kankuamo language Teijua or Tairuna and in Ijka Teruna, meaning "Males" or "sons of the Tiger".

Although Tairona may be an inaccurate name for the people that inhabited the region during the contact with the Spanish Empire, it has become the most common name for a hierarchical network of villages that developed around 900 CE. Initially it was used to refer to the inhabitants of a valley and probably a chiefdom named Tairo on the northern slope of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. But by the 16th century, the Spanish used it for the whole group of complex chiefdoms in the area. The groups in the northern and western Sierra Nevada were largely indistinguishable to the Spaniards, and became indistinguishable to archaeologists in more modern times.

The archaeological sequence of the region spans from approximately 200 BCE to the 1600s CE when the Tairona were forcibly integrated into the Spanish Encomienda system. The available C14 dates show that the coastal sites were occupied from perhaps as early as 200 BCE, much earlier than those at higher elevations, including some of the largest centers, at 1,200&_160;metres (3,937&_160;ft) above sea level. The coves and inlets on the Caribbean coast, like Chengue, Nehuange, Gayraca, Cinto and Buritaca, where villages have only more modest architecture, show the longest occupations, spanning the whole 1,800 years.