The Isthmo-Colombian area is defined as a cultural area

Cultural area

A cultural area or culture area is a region with one relatively homogeneous human activity or complex of activities . These areas are primarily geographical, not historical , and they are not considered equivalent to Kulturkreis .-Development:A culture area is a concept in cultural anthropology...

 encompassing those territories occupied by speakers of the Chibchan languages

Chibchan languages

The Chibchan languages make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama...

 at the time of European contact. It includes portions of eastern Honduras

Honduras

Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

, Caribbean Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

, Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

, Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

, and northern Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

.

Cultural area study and theory

It is a portion of what has previously been termed the Intermediate Area

Intermediate Area

The Intermediate Area is an archaeological geographical area of the Americas that was defined in its clearest form by Gordon R. Willey in his 1971 book An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 2: South America...

, and was defined in a chapter by John W. Hoopes and Oscar Fonseca Z. in the 2003 book Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia.

The concept draws upon multidisciplinary perspectives, including linguistic reconstructions by Costa Rican anthropological linguist Adolfo Constenla Umaña and observations on Chibchan genetics by Costa Rican anthropological geneticist Ramiro Barrantes Mesén. It is currently being refined through ongoing studies of the linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

. genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

, archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

, art history

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

, ethnography

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

, and ethnohistory

Ethnohistory

Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may not exist today....

 of this part of the Americas. This includes more recent study of the relationships between this area and the Antilles

Antilles

The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...

 within a Pan-Caribbean

Pan-Caribbean

The concept of a "pan-Caribbean" culture area refers to recent proposals by an international group of archaeologists to the effect that contacts among Pre-Columbian peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula, the Antilles, Central America, and northern South America may have been more extensive than...

 framework.

Cultural area archaeology

Archaeological knowledge of this area has received relatively little attention compared to its adjoining neighbors to the north and south, despite the fact that scholars such as Max Uhle

Max Uhle

Max Uhle was a German archaeologist, whose work in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia at the turn of the Twentieth Century had a significant impact on the practice of archaeology of South America....

, William Henry Holmes

William Henry Holmes

William Henry Holmes was an American anthropologist, archaeologist, geologist and museum director.-Life:...

, C. V. Hartman

C. V. Hartman

C. V. Hartman, full name Carl Vilhelm Hartman , was a Swedish botanist and anthropologist.Trained as a botanist, Hartman joined Norwegian ethnographer Carl Sofus Lumholtz on a three-year expedition to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico. One of Hartman's duties was to conduct studies concerning...

, and George Grant MacCurdy

George Grant MacCurdy

George Grant MacCurdy, A.M., Ph.D. was an American anthropologist, born at Warrensburg, Mo., where he graduated from the State Normal School in 1887, after which he attended Harvard ; then studied in Europe at Vienna, Paris , and at Berlin George Grant MacCurdy, A.M., Ph.D. (April 17, 1863 –...

 undertook studies of archaeological sites and collections here over a century ago that were augmented by further research by Samuel Kirkland Lothrop

Samuel Kirkland Lothrop

Samuel Kirkland Lothrop was a New England clergyman.-Biography:He was graduated at Harvard in 1825, and at the Harvard Divinity School in 1828...

, John Alden Mason

John Alden Mason

John Alden Mason was an archaeological anthropologist and linguist.Mason was born in Orland, Indiana, but grew up in Philadelphia's Germantown. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907 and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 1911...

, and others in the early 20th century. One of the reasons for the relative lack of attention is the relative absence of monumental architecture that is so characteristic of the neighboring culure areas of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

 and the Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 areas and a long history of ethnocentric perceptions by Western scholars of what represented civilization

Civilization

Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

 and what did not.

Sites and Landmarks

There are a large number of sites with impressive platform mounds, plazas, paved roads, stone sculpture, and artifacts made from jade

Jade

Jade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...

, gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, and ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

 materials. These include Las Mercedes (Archaeological Site, Costa Rica)

Las Mercedes (Archaeological Site, Costa Rica)

Las Mercedes is a complex archaeological site located on the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica between the foothills of Turrialba Volcano and the alluvial plain...

, Guayabo de Turrialba, Cutrís, Cubujuquí and Ciudad Perdida

Ciudad Perdida

Ciudad Perdida is the archaeological site of an ancient city in Sierra Nevada, Colombia. It is believed to have been founded about 800 AD, some 650 years earlier than Machu Picchu...

 in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria of Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

. Research at sites such as Rivas, Costa Rica

Rivas, Costa Rica

Rivas is a modern hamlet located in the General River Valley of Costa Rica near the city of San Isidro. The town is positioned 1 kilometer north of where the Rio Buenavista and the Rio Chirripò Pacífico converge to form the Rio General. Rivas is located in the cantón of Pérez Zeledón in San José...

 helps to document the configurations of large settlements in the centuries prior to the Spanish Conquest. Some of the best-known Isthmo-Colombian sculptures are the stone spheres of Costa Rica

Stone spheres of Costa Rica

The stone spheres of Costa Rica are an assortment of over three hundred petrospheres in Costa Rica, located on the Diquis Delta and on Isla del Caño. Known locally as Las Bolas, they are also called The Diquis Spheres...

. Another area that has provided valuable archaeological information is the Gran Coclé

Gran Coclé

Gran Coclé is an archaeological culture area of the so-called Intermediate Area in pre-Columbian Central America. The area largely coincides with the modern-day Panamanian province of Coclé, and consisted of a number of identifiable native cultures. Archaeologists have loosely designated these...

 region in Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

, largely coinciding with the modern-day Coclé Province

Coclé Province

Coclé is a province of central Panama on the nation's southern coast. The capital is the city of Penonomé. This province was created by the Act of September 12, 1855 with the title of Department of Coclé during the presidency of Dr. Justo de Arosemena. It became a province, Decretory Number 190,...

.