Prehistoric Human Occupations of the Western Venezuelan Llanos

Abstract

Recent archaeological research in the western Venezuelan llanos has provided very old dates related to maize cultivation. The evidence obtained at Mound I, at the site Hato de la Calzada, indicates that these seasonally flooded savannas were occupied from 920 B.C. to A.D. 500 by the Caño del Oso people who practiced hunting, fishing, and maize farming. Around A.D. 500 manioc cultivation and artificial earthworks were introduced in this area. Both elements were probably obtained from the Arauquinoid people who inhabited the Orinoco riverbanks. The available data regarding the antiquity of manioc, based on agricultural systems in seasonally flooded savannas of South America, suggests that such systems developed in the Amazon Basin.

Re-thinking the Migration of Cariban-Speakers from the Middle Orinoco River to North-Central Venezuela (AD 800)

“…Pre-colonial earthen structures have been reported in Venezuela since the nineteenth century (Marcano 1971a;Jahn 1927;Gassón 2002;Rey-González 2007). Systematic research into mounds or elevated platforms, raised cultivation fields and causeways in the western llanos of Barinas State began in the 1960s (Zucchi 1968(Zucchi , 1973Spencer et al 2014). Unfortunately, research into these phenomena in the densely populated and urbanized Lake Valencia region was long in coming.…”