Indigenous peoples of Colombia

Indigenous Colombians

The Wayuu are the largest indigenous ethnic group in Colombia.
Total population
(1,378,884 (2005) 3.4% of Colombia's population)
Regions with significant populations
Colombia
Languages
Indigenous languages and Spanish
Religion
Roman Catholicism, Evangelicalism, Irreligion, Native religions

Indigenous peoples of Colombia, or Native Colombians, are the ethnic groups who have been in Colombia prior to the Europeans in the early 16th century. Known as pueblos indígenas in Spanish, they comprise 3.4% of the country's population and belong to 87 different tribes.

Approximately 80% of the indigenous peoples of Colombia live in the La Guajira, Cauca, and Nariño Departments. While the Amazonian region of Colombia is sparsely populated, it is home to over 70 different indigenous ethnic groups.

Some theories claim the earliest human habitation of South America to be as early as 43,000 BC, although present archaeological understanding places this around 15,000 BC at the earliest. Anthropologist Tom Dillehay dates the earliest hunter-gatherer cultures on the continent at almost 10,000 BC, during the late and early Holocene periods. According to his evidence based on rock shelters, Colombia's first human inhabitants were probably concentrated along the Caribbean coast and on the Andean highland slopes. By that time, these regions were forested and had a climate resembling today's. Dillehay has noted that Tibitó, located just north of Bogotá, is one of the oldest known and most widely accepted sites of early human occupation in Colombia, dating from about 9,790 BC. There is evidence that the highlands of Colombia were occupied by significant numbers of human foragers by 9,000 BC, with permanent village settlement in northern Colombia by 2,000 BC

Beginning in the 1st millennium BC, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Quimbaya, Tairona, Calima, Zenú, Tierradentro, San Agustín, Tolima, and Urabá became skilled in farming, mining, and metalcraft; and some developed the political system of cacicazgos with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques.