11000 BC to 1497

Before Columbus

Hunters reach this land early: at Taima-Taima, near Coro, archaeologists found bones of a mastodon killed some 13,000 years ago. Later, Carib and Arawak speaking peoples live along the coast and the Orinoco, the Wayuu on the Guajira peninsula, and in the Andes the Timoto-Cuica farm terraced fields. No single state unites them.