Muisca agriculture

The Muisca agriculture describes the agriculture of the Muisca, the advanced civilisation that was present in the times before the Spanish conquest on the high plateau in the Colombian Andes; the Altiplano Cundiboyacense. The Muisca were a predominantly agricultural society with small-scale farmfields, part of more extensive terrains. To diversify their diet, they traded mantles, gold, emeralds and salt for fruits, vegetables, coca, yopo and cotton cultivated in lower altitude warmer terrains populated by their neighbours, the Muzo, Panche, Guane, Guayupe, Lache, Sutagao and U'wa. Trade of products grown farther away happened with the Calima, Pijao and Caribbean coastal communities around the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Important scholars who have contributed to the knowledge about the Muisca agriculture have been Pedro Simón, Marianne Cardale de Schrimpff, Carl Henrik Langebaek and Sylvia Broadbent. The central highlands of the Colombian Andes show evidence of population since 12,400 years BP at various archaeological sites such as El Abra, Tequendama and Tibitó. The prehistorical period is called Preceramic and lasted from 11,000 to 7000 years BP. This was followed by the Archaic period until 3000 BP (1000 BCE). Some of the earliest evidence of agriculture in South America is found in Colombia, dated at 4000 to 3000 BCE. Around this time, archaeological evidence shows the previous hunter-gatherer-based people left their rock shelters and started to live on the open plains of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, especially the southern part, the Bogotá savanna. Between ca. 1500 to 1000 BCE, the increase in d13C in Muisca human remains analysed indicate a diet that was richer in maize and as of 1000 BCE maize dominated the Muisca diet. Analysis of C4 by the Groningen University revealed that the cultivation of maize took a leap around 750-800 BCE, the most accepted start of the Herrera Period. During the Early Herrera, around 500 BCE, the use of ceramics became widespread in the area.