Tibitó is the second-oldest dated
archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...
on the
Altiplano Cundiboyacense
The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. (Do not confuse with The Altiplano or the Altiplano Nariñense, both fur ...
,
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
.
[Caracterización de los sitios arqueológicos Sabana de Bogotá]
- ICANH The
rock shelter
A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long or wide, rock shelters are alm ...
is located in the
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
Tocancipá,
Cundinamarca,
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
, in the northern part of the
Bogotá savanna
The Bogotá savanna is a savanna#Savanna ecoregions, montane savanna, located in the southwestern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the center of Colombia. The Bogotá savanna has an extent of and an average altitude of . The savanna is si ...
. At Tibitó, bone and stone tools (knives and scrapers mostly) and carbon have been found. Bones from ''
Haplomastodon'', ''
Cuvieronius'', ''
Cerdocyon
The crab-eating fox (''Cerdocyon thous''), also known as the forest dog, wood fox, bushfox (not to be confused with the bush dog) or maikong, is an Extant taxon, extant species of medium-sized Canidae, canid endemic to the central part of South ...
'' and
white tailed deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...
from the deepest human trace containing layer of the site is carbon dated to be 11,740 ± 110 years old. The oldest dated sediments are lacustrine clays from an ancient
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
lake.
Principal research at Tibitó was carried out by Colombian
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
Gonzalo Correal Urrego, who also analysed other early sites
Tequendama,
Aguazuque and
El Abra.
[Correal Urrego, 1990]
Background
The Altiplano Cundiboyacense, and its southeastern flat portion the
Bogotá savanna
The Bogotá savanna is a savanna#Savanna ecoregions, montane savanna, located in the southwestern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the center of Colombia. The Bogotá savanna has an extent of and an average altitude of . The savanna is si ...
, were populated by the first humans in the late Pleistocene, as evidenced by finds in
Pubenza (16,000 years BP), El Abra, Tibitó and others. Until roughly 30,000 years BP, the Bogotá savanna was covered by a large lake;
Lake Humboldt. This glacial lake surrounded by snowy peaks was fed by the glaciers of
Sumapaz in the south, based on analysis of debris flow deposits close to
Fusagasugá, yielding ages between 40,000 and 7000 years BP.
[Hoyos et al., 2015, p.265] The approximately large lake contained an island, presently known as the
Suba Hills (''Cerros de Suba''), in
Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...
. Surrounding the lake, Pleistocene megafauna as ''
Glyptodont
Glyptodonts are an extinct clade of large, heavily armoured armadillos, reaching up to in height, and maximum body masses of around 2 tonnes. They had short, deep skulls, a fused vertebral column, and a large bony carapace made up of hundreds o ...
s'',
giant sloths,
mastodons and deer foraged. The lake retreated during the last 30,000 years, but remnants still existing today are the
Bogotá River
The Bogotá River is a major river of the Cundinamarca Department, Cundinamarca department of Colombia. A right tributary of the Magdalena River, the Bogotá River crosses the region from the northeast to the southwest and passing along the wester ...
and its tributaries,
Lake Herrera and the many
Wetlands of Bogotá. The
timber line around Lake Humboldt, in older texts named ''Lake Bogotá'', has been estimated to have been lower than today.
[Zonneveld, 1968, p.205]
During the latest Pleistocene and early Holocene, the first humans arrived on the
Andean
The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long and wide (widest between 18°S ...
high plateau at above sea level. They settled in caves and rock shelters in various locations on the Altiplano and had a
hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...
lifestyle. The main ingredient of the early diet existing until
colonial times was
white tailed deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...
(''Odocoileus virginianus''). Fishing in the many lakes that existed in those times was another source of food for the people.
Description

Radiocarbon dating of a deeper lacustrine clay in the sequence of Tibitó revealed the site was in a lake environment around 52,000 years BP.
[Vogel & Lerman, 1969, p.358] Pleistocene lakes also existed in the
Ubaté-Chiquinquirá Valley to the northwest and in the valley of
Soatá, in the lower altitude northeasternmost part of the
Muisca Confederation
The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers (''zaques'', ''zipas'', ''iraca'', and ''tundama'') in the central Andes, Andean highlands of what is today Colombia before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, Spanis ...
.
[Villarroel et al., 2001, p.79] The paleoclimate changed over the course of the latest Pleistocene and the Upper Pleniglacial was relatively humid, eroding earlier lagunal clays. The latest stage of the Pleniglacial was characterised by a cold and dry climate. In the valleys, hunter-gatherers lived. The original topography was covered in the
Guantivá interstadial and
El Abra stadial by humic sediments.
[Scott & Meyers, 1994, p.390]
At Tibitó remains of the extinct
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
megafauna
In zoology, megafauna (from Ancient Greek, Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and Neo-Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately , this lower en ...
''
Cuvieronius'', ''
Haplomastodon'' and ''
Equus amerhippus'' and extant
white tailed deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...
and
crab-eating fox have been found set in a circle. The bones were burnt and unburnt and mixed with stone artifacts and limestone chunks. The most important finds of ''Cuvieronius'' come from the Eastern Cordillera, with main sites Tibitó and
Mosquera.
[Prado et al., 2003, p.353] 156 unifacial stone artifacts, of which 41% knives,
[ pieces of carbon and bone tools have been found and analysed by Gonzalo Correal Urrego.][Dillehay, 1999, p.208][Correal Urrego, 1990, p.74] Ninetynine percent of the finds were from local origin.[Gnecco & Aceituno, 2004, p.155] The bones, showing a relative higher abundance of ''Haplomastodon'' than ''Cuvieronius'' and the extinct American horse,[Correal Urrego, 1990, p.76] have been carbon dated to be 11,740 ± 110 years old. This was confirmed by palynological analysis, that also indicated a páramo
Páramo () may refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...
climate at the time.[Correal Urrego, 1990, p.77] This makes the site slightly younger than the oldest; El Abra, dated at 12,400 ± 160 years BP.[
In the vicinity of Tibitó, ]rock art
In archaeology, rock arts are human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type al ...
has been discovered.[
]
See also
* List of Muisca and pre-Muisca sites
* Aguazuque, Tequendama, Checua
* El Abra, Gonzalo Correal Urrego
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tibito
Former populated places in Colombia
Pre-Clovis archaeological sites in the Americas
Archaeological sites of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense
Altiplano Cundiboyacense
Andean preceramic
Pleistocene Colombia
Pleistocene paleontological sites of South America
Tourist attractions in Cundinamarca Department