Cities
One of the best-known Tairona nucleated villages and archaeological sites is known as Ciudad Perdida (Spanish for "Lost City"). It was a major city, about 13 hectares (32 acres) in the "core". It was discovered by looters in 1975 but is now under the care of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History. Recent demographic studies suggest that it was inhabited by approximately 1,500 to 2,400 people that lived in at least 11,700 square meters (124,000 square feet) of roofed space in 184 round houses built on top of stone paved terraces. There are many other sites of similar or greater size.
A larger site, Pueblito is located near the coast. According to Reichel-Dolmatoff's research, it contains at least 254 terraces and had a population of about 3000 people. Regional archaeological studies in the area show that even larger nucleated villages existed towards the western slope of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, like Posiguieca and Ciudad Antigua.
Smaller villages and hamlets were part of a very robust exchange network of specialized communities, connected with stone-paved paths. Villages specialized in salt production and fishing, like Chengue in the Parque Tairona, are evidence of a robust Tairona political economy based on specialized staple production. Chengue contains at least 100 terraces and was inhabited by about 800 to 1,000 people in 15 hectares by 1400. The Tairona are known to have built stone terraced platforms, house foundations, stairs, sewers, tombs, and bridges. Use of pottery for utilitarian and ornamental or ceremonial purposes was also highly developed as a result of fairly specialized communities.
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Famous quotes containing the word cities:
“How far men go for the material of their houses! The inhabitants of the most civilized cities, in all ages, send into far, primitive forests, beyond the bounds of their civilization, where the moose and bear and savage dwell, for their pine boards for ordinary use. And, on the other hand, the savage soon receives from cities iron arrow-points, hatchets, and guns, to point his savageness with.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is a war of the people, of all the people, and it must be fought not only on the battlefield but in the cities and the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home and in the heart of every man, woman and child who loves freedom.”
—Arthur Wimperis (1874–1953)
“The cities are the principal home and seat of the human group. They are the coral colony for Man, the collective being.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)