In the ages before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca, the high central plains of the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes was inhabited by the Muisca. They established a rather egalitarian society of small settlements dotted across the valleys and flatlands in the mountains, based mainly on agriculture, trade and the extraction of salt, which gave them the name "The Salt People". The Altiplano Cundiboyacense and neighbouring Ubaque and Tenza Valleys to the east the inhabited was very much isolated from the coast of later Colombia, but via trade routes and many markets held frequently, they were connected with their neighbouring indigenous groups; to the west and northwest the Panche, Muzo and Yarigui people, to the north the Guane, Lache and U'wa, in the eastern part towards the vast flatlands of the Llanos Orientales the Achagua, Guayupe and Tegua people and to the south in the mountains of Sumapaz the Sutagao.