It’s surprising that not many Ticos have visited the Guayabo National Monument, found in northwest Turrialba, in the province of Cartago. This protected site holds clues into human history.
The architecture we can see there was built between 800 and 1100 AD. The cobblestone paths were built with immaculately placed pebbles, chosen for their size and shape, and designed in a way to stabilize the terrain and waterflow.
Between 300 and 900 AD, the village was likely occupied by several hundred people at a time. This was likely the most important village of the chiefdom. Each village would have had its own leader and they would have had a leader for all of them as well.
These ancestors lived differently than other indigenous populations, such as those in Mexico and Peru. They did not build to the same scale but on the other hand they avoided the emergence of marked social classes and slavery.
