San Agustín Culture Timeline

San Agustín

1 CE – 900 CE

The largest collection of megalithic religious sculpture in South America — hundreds of monumental stone statues, some over four metres tall, depicting gods, warriors, and composite human-animal beings, carved by a culture whose name, language, and social structure remain almost entirely unknown. With no written records and no surviving descendants who can be linked with certainty to the sculptors, archaeologists refer to its makers simply as the San Agustín culture, one of the more genuine mysteries in South American archaeology.