Disappearance of Caribbean people in the sixteenth century

Abstract

During the early decades of the XVI century a large number of villages located in a vast area of the Caribbean region of what is today Colombia, suffered an abrupt population decrease. The study of this phenomenon allows to glance at the complex spatial and political web that existed at the time of the invasion. This examination questions some assumptions about settlement patterns present in this area, in particular, arguments about an scattered type of settlement at the time of the arrival of the Europeans. In terms of the methodology, the rapidity of the process highlights the need to examine these changes, in order no to extrapolate these phenomena, observable at the end of the XVI century, at the time of contact, as if the invasion would have not altered patterns of indigenous settlements.