page_title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica
section_title: Historical background
hierarchical_section_title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica / Historical background
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of UFCO remnants in Southern Costa
context_page_description: The stone spheres of Costa Rica are an assortment of over 300 petrospheres in Costa Rica, on the Diquís Delta and on Isla del Caño. Locally, they are also known as bolas de piedra. The spheres are commonly attributed to the extinct Diquís culture, and they are sometimes referred to as the Diquís Spheres. They are the best-known stone sculptures of the Isthmo-Colombian area.
  They are thought to have been placed in lines along the approach to the houses of chiefs, but their exact significance remains uncertain.
  The Palmar Sur Archaeological Excavations are a series of excavations of a site located in the southern portion of the country, known as the Diquís Delta, and have centered on a site known as "Finca 6". The archaeological findings date back to the Aguas Buenas Period and Chiriquí Period.
  In June 2014, the Precolumbian Chiefdom Settlements with Stone Spheres of the Diquís was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. In July 2014, a project, which had been proposed in 2011, to declare the spheres a national symbol of the country was approved.
context_section_description: Before the arrival of the Companía Bananera de Costa Rica, a branch of the United Fruit Company, and banana plantations in the 1930s, vegetation in this area offered a great deal of biodiversity in both plant and animal resources. Resources available to Precolumbian inhabitants in this alluvial plain consisted of riverine and ocean resources, including mangrove forests located in the Terraba and Sierpe Rivers.
  The rich alluvial soils of this region facilitated historical agriculture since the 1930s. The United Fruit Company dominated this southern region with banana plantations as early as the 1920s in Parrita and Quepos. The UFCO entered Palmar Sur in the 1930s under the name of Companía Bananera de Costa Rica in an effort to avoid antimonopoly legislature.  Today the landscape is still carved into agricultural fields which are owned by co-ops and consist of plantain, banana, and palm plantations.
caption: Remnants of UFCO occupation in Palmar Sur
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