Prehistoric Nicaragua

The creation of Nicaragua

Central America was created through tectonic activities beginning about 15 million years ago, when the Cocos plate began passing beneath the Central America plate. As a result a chain of volcanoes grew, including various within Nicaragua itself. At the union of the two plates is a low area where the two great lakes, Cocibolca and Xolotlan, were formed, and further south is the Gulf of Nicoya in Costa Rica. 

First inhabitants

The first humans to arrive in the Americas crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia to Alaska by at least 15,000 years before present. Archaeological evidence indicates that migrating hunters and gatherers spread south over the next millennia, reaching the southern tip of South America by crossing the isthmus of Central America. Material evidence is found in the form of stone spear heads, such as Clovis and Folsom points that were used for hunting megafauna. 

First settlements

The first known settlements were located along the lake shores, especially in the Managua metropolitan zone. Between about 500 BCE and 800 CE population grew with increasingly complex settlement hierarchies. Archaeologists believe that the inhabitants were affiliated with the Macro-Chibchan language family, related to indigenous groups located from Honduras to Venezuela, and still occupying the Caribbean watershed of Nicaragua. Decorated ceramics and imported obsidian indicate cultural contacts with El Salvador and western Honduras. The site of Sonzapote on Zapatera Island featured monumental statues of seated nobility and/or deities, located around low mounds suggesting incipient urbanism.

The Chibcha culture 

Beginning about 800 CE, dramatic changes in the material culture of Pacific Nicaragua indicate greater interaction within a super-regional interaction sphere, including Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica, but according to ethno historical sources also exchange networks from Central Mexico. These sources suggest waves of migrants, speaking Mesoamerican languages, to form the Chorotega and Nicarao cultural groups. Archaeological evidence indicates changing settlement patterns, greater levels of social complexity, and new pottery types, mortuary patterns, and other characteristics. This pattern of cultural change culminated in 1522 with the arrival of the Spanish.