According to educationvv, the human settlement of the current territory of Uruguay begins with the oldest proven vestiges of human beings, which are 13,000 years old BC. The stretch between 13,000 – 9500 years BC is called: “Paleoindian period”; the one between 8500 – 4000 years BC is called: Archaic period. [1] There is evidence that supports the settlement of Uruguay based on the findings made in the cerritos de indios and the Gruta del Palacio. [2]
Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors major Amerindian populations that were in the present territory of the Uruguay were the chanáes, Charruas, bohanes, guenoas, arachanes, Guianas and minuanes, the latter which had more presence. Apparently from the Pampas area, the Charruás occupied an area near the Río de la Plata, current Departments of Rocha, Maldonado and Montevideo, approximately; while on the coast of the current departments of San Jose and Cologne they were the chanás, from the same trunk ethnic. To the west they bordered on the territories occupied by the yaros; But to the north they were separated by a vast unpopulated area, from the most advanced settlements of the Guarani that occupied the current southern territory of Brazil, towards which they progressively moved as colonization advanced and also as a consequence of various military movements. during the revolutionary era.
Originally very warlike, they are credited with having killed the Spanish navigator Juan Díaz de Solís, when he landed on the coast on the voyage he commanded, and which produced the discovery of the Río de la Plata. They destroyed all the first settlements of the colonists, generally of light construction; which resulted in good measure that the territory east of the Uruguay River was left barren by the Spanish colonizers settled in Buenos Aires ; and that only Hernando Arias de Saavedra landed there a few specimens of cattle, to allow them to reproduce spontaneously. For this reason, the territory through which the Charruas roamed was not taken care of, until the Portuguese founded the Colonia del Sacramento, leading to the decision to build a highly fortified position in the Bay of Montevideo, which determined that the Indians moved away. from the coast, to the north; absorbing and extinguishing the yaros and bohans populations. [3] The only ceremonial known to be practiced was of a funeral nature. The dead man was taken to a small elevation of the land, where apparently all the deceased were buried, and they were buried together with their weapons, clothes and other objects that had belonged to them; what originated the charrúa archaeological sites known as “los cerritos”.
The peoples of the Guaraní ethnic group occupied areas of northern Uruguay due to their canoeing habits that made them seek a projection from the subtropical jungle areas of what is now Paraguay, to the south. They had reached a certain development, they conditioned hides, they spun, they wove, they cultivated some plants, and they were skilled navigators in canoes. Physically they were smaller than the Charruas and, unlike the latter, they maintained cannibalistic customs. [4]Another tribe, the Guyanás, occupied the territories between the De los Patos lagoon, and the south of the Uruguay River from its sources, up to the curved bed to the north and west of its tributary, the Ibicuy River; in the south of the Brazil, to where they seem to have been displaced by Guarani migrations from the west. It is considered both the yaros, as the guenoas, bohanes and minuanes were groups of the charruas themselves. The truth is that towards the beginning of the colonial era they had been practically confused with them; In the same way that in the early days of colonization, pushed by the settlers among other reasons, they were continuously displacing from their original settlements and therefore becoming increasingly confused, which is why they have usually been generically designated as Charruas. [3]
The chanás or chanás-timbúes, for their part, inhabited both coasts of the Uruguay River in its lower course, the delta of the Río Negro, and coasts of the Río de la Plata, current Departments of Colonia, San José and very south of Montevideo and Maldonado ; but mainly they extended in Argentine Mesopotamia (current province of Entre Ríos), along both banks of the Paraná River, from the mouth of the Paraguay River up to the delta and its union with the Uruguay River. Despite belonging to the same group as the Charruás, they had certain peculiarities. They were a semi-nomadic people, who settled in coastal villages of lagoons or rivers; those who sailed in canoes made of tree trunks, and those who fished; In some regions of the Paraná River area, some cultivation activities began; They made pottery equipped with handles and decorated, and it seems that they had developed some trade with the Guarani. [3] Like the other indigenous people in the area, it seems that they only began to use some clothing when the Europeans introduced the cattle from which they obtain hides; and also rudimentary cotton fabrics that would be of Guaraní origin, since this plant grows in the warm northern territories. The archaeological and ceramic remains suggest a degree of advancement slightly higher than that of the Charruas.