Editing Panama (section)

===Pre-Columbian<!-- This is NOT a typo. Before Christopher Columbus, not before Colombia --> period===
[[File:Panama Embera0605.jpg|thumb|[[Embera-Wounaan|Embera]] girl dressed for a dance]]
The [[Isthmus of Panama]] was formed about three&nbsp;million years ago when the land bridge between North and South America finally became complete, and plants and animals gradually crossed it in both directions. The existence of the [[isthmus]] affected the dispersal of people, agriculture and technology throughout the American continent from the appearance of the first hunters and collectors to the era of villages and cities.<ref name="Mayo, J 2004">Mayo, J. (2004). ''La Industria prehispánica de conchas marinas en Gran Coclé'', Panamá. Diss. U Complutense de Madrid, pp. 9–10.</ref><ref>Piperno, D. R. (1984). ''The Application of Phytolith Analysis to the Reconstruction of Plant Subsistence and Environments in Prehistoric Panama''. Dissertation, Temple University. Philadelphia, vol. 8 pp. 21–43.</ref>

The earliest discovered artifacts of [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous peoples]] in Panama include [[Paleo-Indians|Paleo-Indian]] [[projectile point]]s. Later central Panama was home to some of the first [[pottery]]-making in the Americas, for example the cultures at [[Monagrillo (archaeological site)|Monagrillo]], which date back to 2500–1700 BC. These evolved into significant populations best known through their spectacular burials (dating to c. 500–900 AD) at the [[Monagrillo (archaeological site)|Monagrillo]] [[archaeological site]], and their [[Gran Coclé]] style [[polychrome pottery]]. The monumental [[monolith]]ic sculptures at the [[Barriles]] (Chiriqui) site are also important traces of these ancient isthmian cultures.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Exhibition |url=https://researchcomputing.si.edu/exhibitions/stri.php?node=Archaeology_si_2774306 |access-date=2025-05-08 |website=researchcomputing.si.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Treasures of Sitio Conte and Personal Adornment of the Coclé {{!}} Fashion History Timeline |url=https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/sitio-conte-cocle/ |access-date=2025-05-08 |website=fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu}}</ref>

Before Europeans arrived Panama was widely settled by [[Chibchan languages|Chibchan]], [[Chocoan]], and [[Cueva people|Cueva]] peoples. The largest group were the Cueva (whose specific language affiliation is poorly documented). The size of the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous]] population of the isthmus at the time of European colonization is uncertain. Estimates range as high as two million people, but more recent studies place that number closer to 200,000. Archaeological finds and testimonials by early European explorers describe diverse native isthmian groups exhibiting cultural variety and suggesting people developed{{clarify|date=August 2016|reason=Is this an anthropological term?}} by regular regional routes of commerce. [[Austronesians]] had a trade network to Panama as there is evidence of [[coconuts]] reaching the Pacific coast of Panama from the [[Philippines]] in [[Columbian Exchange|Precolumbian]] times.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Baudouin |first1=Luc |last2=Gunn |first2=Bee |last3=Olsen |first3=Kenneth |date=January 2014 |title=The presence of coconut in southern Panama in pre-Columbian times: clearing up the confusion |journal=Annals of Botany |volume=113 |issue=1 |pages=1–5 |doi=10.1093/aob/mct244 |pmid=24227445 |pmc=3864718  | issn=0305-7364 }}</ref>

When Panama was colonized, the indigenous peoples fled into the forest and nearby islands. Scholars believe that [[Infection|infectious disease]] was the primary cause of the population decline of American natives. The indigenous peoples had no [[Adaptive immune system|acquired immunity]] to diseases such as [[smallpox]] which had been chronic in [[Eurasia]]n populations for centuries.<ref>Hays, J. N. (2005). ''[https://archive.org/details/epidemicspandemi0000hays/page/82 Epidemics and pandemics: their impacts on human history]'', ABC-CLIO, pp. 82–83, {{ISBN|1-85109-658-2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last = Austin Alchon |first = Suzanne |title = A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YiHHnV08ebkC&pg=PA67 |publisher = University of New Mexico Press |date= 2003 |pages = 67–74 |isbn = 0-8263-2871-7}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Why Blame Smallpox? The Death of the Inca Huayna Capac and the Demographic Destruction of Ancient Peru (Tawantinsuyu) |url=https://users.pop.umn.edu/~rmccaa/aha2004/whypox.htm? |access-date=2025-05-08 |website=users.pop.umn.edu}}</ref>