Ciudad Perdida Construction

Until very recently, it was believed that Ciudad Perdida´s construction might date to the year A.D. 1000. However, recent archaeological research found that the oldest residential areas date to the year A.D. 650 and were still in use up until A.D. 1100 or 12000, which would place these occupations within what is known as Neguanje period.

These residential areas are located towards the northern end of the town and correspond to the first cluster of terraces found at the beginning of the staircase leading down to the Buritaca River. The early period structures are buried below the stone masonry terraces and rings on view, which also gives us a good idea of the specific order in which this sector and the Core area was built.

The terraces for this residential cluster, as well as the string of terraces in the Core Area leading up to the great central terrace were built in an ascending order, from the lowest to the highest one.

To sum up, what this means is that the stone-masonry terraces and walls that were cleaned out and restored between 1976 and 1986 which are currently on view, were built between A.D. 1200 and A.D. 1600, modifying and burying other earlier structures. It was in this time period that the town acquired the form and layout that you can see today.

Some archaeologists estimate that by the 16th century Teyuna might have had a population between fifteen hundred and two thousand people; if we add the population estimated for the surrounding settlements, approximately ten thousand people were living in this area alone at this time. Bear in mind that these are estimations since precise demographics for pre –Columbian populations are very difficult to calculate.