Tumaco

The name Tumaco recalls the Tumaco-La Tolita culture, a pre-Columbian archaeological tradition of the Pacific coast from Esmeraldas in Ecuador to Buenaventura in Colombia. Its roots lay in the Chorrera culture: La Tolita island was settled by 600 BC, and by 350 BC a distinctive Tumaco-La Tolita style had emerged.

Its people built earthen mounds called tolas, made fine ceramics, and worked gold; they were also the first craftsmen known to have worked platinum. After a florescence of some seven centuries the tradition changed with the El Morro phase from AD 350, La Tolita was abandoned around AD 400, and between 500 and 700 the coastal settlements were gradually depopulated.

The language of these ancient coast-dwellers is unknown. By 1337 their former lands were held by later peoples of the Colombian Pacific, whose descendants the Spanish later encountered on the same shores.