"El Caño"

The archaeological Park “El Caño”, is the area surrounding the modern village of El Caño contains one of Panama's most important archaeological sites. Over the course of the last century Archaeologist have been discovering several pre-Columbian burial sites at this location. After a considerable amount of excavating at El Caño during the 1970s, archaeologist only managed to find the remains of 16 individuals. No one ever managed to discover any large volumes of gold filled graves like the Spanish had talked about in their written accounts. It was discovered that there were many tombs with caciques inside on these tombs. Next to these tombs or behind the tombs were all the family of the cacique because the cacique was an important person in the society, all the community made a big ceremony for the death of a single cacique. Also, when a cacique dies, all the family had to die to go to the afterlife with the cacique or the alpha on the family so they can obtain peace. Although the discovery of the burial sites at El Caño has contributed a lot to the academic world, it has also done a lot to change the economics of the region. The excavation that took place, in collaboration with the National Geographic Society and Panama's National Institute of Culture and National Secretariat of Science, Technology, and Innovation, discovered several tombs of warriors that belonged to an unknown society.  The tombs were found in multiple levels and the warriors were bathed in gold, making the discovery one of the richest discoveries in America. One of the more unusual findings was the bones of a very poisonous blowfish, which may have been used to kill all the people that were presumed to have been sacrificed for the chief. All bodies surrounding the chief were covered in pieces of ceramic plates for unknown reasons. One of the most characteristics elements of the archaeological park are the alignments of columnar basalt. The monoliths are naturally sized basalt columns brought from the mountains. These larges stones were placed next to a boulder (the boulder and the columns are two elements that go together to form the complex-boulder columns characteristics of the alineaments of the Rio Grande Valley). The discovery at El Caño has become something that is celebrated among members of the local population and the rest of Panama. The discovery of golden artifacts and the pre-Columbine tombs have aroused the interest of people worldwide. In recent years tourism has been rising in El Caño and today the local population has worked with Archaeologists to create a small archaeological park that people can visits.