Stone spheres of Costa Rica

Pre-Columbian stone sphere, located at the University of Costa

Rica as a symbol of tradition and ancient wisdom.

of excavations of a site located in the southern portion of

Costa Rica, known as the Diqus Delta. The excavations
have centered on a site known as Farm 6, dating back
to the Aguas Buenas Period (300800 CE) and Chiriqu
Period (8001550 CE).
In June 2014, the Precolumbian Chiefdom Settlements
with Stone Spheres of the Diquis was added to the UN-
ESCO list of World Heritage Sites.[1]

1 Description
The spheres range in size from a few centimetres to
over 2 metres (6.6 ft) in diameter, and weigh up to 15
tons.[2] Most are sculpted from gabbro,[2] the coarse-
Imagen Csmica, a work on ancient mysticism, Costa Rican grained equivalent of basalt. There are a dozen or so
Art Museum, San Jos, Costa Rica, sculpture of Jorge Jimnez made from shell-rich limestone, and another dozen made
Deredia from a sandstone. They appear to have been made by
hammering natural boulders with other rocks, then pol-
The stone spheres (or stone balls) of Costa Rica are an ishing with sand. The degree of nishing and precision of
assortment of over three hundred petrospheres in Costa working varies considerably. The gabbro came from sites
Rica, located on the Diqus Delta and on Isla del Cao. in the hills, several kilometres away from where the n-
Locally, they are known as Las Bolas (literally The ished spheres are found, though some unnished spheres
Balls). The spheres are commonly attributed to the ex- remain in the hills.
tinct Diqus culture and are sometimes referred to as the
Diqus Spheres. They are the best-known stone sculp-
tures of the Isthmo-Colombian area. They are thought to 2 Geographic setting and location
have been placed in lines along the approach to the houses
of chiefs, but their exact signicance remains uncertain. The archaeological site of Palmar Sur is located in the
The Palmar Sur Archeological Excavations are a series southern portion of Costa Rica, known as the Diqus

1
2 6 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Delta, and in the southernmost part of the Puntarenas
Province. The Diqus Delta is dened as the alluvial plain
with the geographical boundaries of the Fila Grisera to
the north and east, the Pacic Ocean to the west, and the
Osa Mountains comprising the southern boundary. This
area is dened by two seasons: wet and dry. The dry
season runs from December through March with the wet
season comprising the remaining months.
The Site is located in Palmar Sur, southern Costa Rica.
The site is located on approximately 10 hectares of prop-
erty that was previously owned by the United Fruit Com-
pany in the alluvial plain of the Trraba River.
3 Site description
View of the Farm 6 Archaeological site
The archaeological site of Farm 6 has been dated to the
Aguas Buenas Period (300800 CE) and Chiriqu Pe-
riod (8001550 CE). It was a multifunctional site accom-
modating a settlement and a cemetery, and remains of
monumental architecture and sculpture are also present
on the site. The monumental architecture consists of
two mounds which were constructed with retaining walls
made of rounded river cobbles and lled with earth. The
site contains multiple locations where large stone spheres
are found in situ. Additionally, since many of the stone
spheres in the region were removed from their original
locations and serve as landscape decoration, the site has
become a storage location for spheres that have been re-
turned to the National Museum.
4 Pre-Columbian history
The stones are believed to have been rst created around
the year 600, with most dating to after 1000 but before
the Spanish conquest. The only method available for dat-
ing the carved stones is stratigraphy, but most stones are
no longer in their original locations. The culture of the
people who made them disappeared after the Spanish
conquest.[3]
Palmar Sur airport park
5 Post-contact history
The spheres were discovered in the 1930s as the United
Fruit Company was clearing the jungle for banana planta-
tions.[3] Workmen pushed them aside with bulldozers and
heavy equipment, damaging some spheres. Additionally,
inspired by stories of hidden gold workmen began to drill
holes into the spheres and blow them open with sticks of
dynamite. Several of the spheres were destroyed before
authorities intervened. Some of the dynamited spheres
have been reassembled and are currently on display at the
National Museum of Costa Rica in San Jos.
The rst scientic investigation of the spheres was un-
dertaken shortly after their discovery by Doris Stone, a
daughter of a United Fruit executive. These were pub-
lished in 1943 in American Antiquity, attracting the at-
tention of Samuel Kirkland Lothrop[4] of the Peabody
Museum at Harvard University.[5] In 1948, he and his
wife attempted to excavate an unrelated archaeological
site in the northern region of Costa Rica.[6] The govern-
ment had just disbanded its professional army, and the
resulting civil unrest threatened the security of Lothrops
team. In San Jos he met Doris Stone, who directed
the group toward the Diqus Delta region in the south-
west (Valle de Diqus refers to the valley of the lower
Ro Grande de Trraba, including the Osa Canton towns
of Puerto Corts, Palmar Norte, and Sierpe[7] ) and pro-
vided them with valuable dig sites and personal contacts.
Lothrops ndings were published in Archaeology of the
Diqus Delta, Costa Rica 1963.
In 2010, University of Kansas researcher John Hoopes
visited the site of the Stone Spheres to evaluate their eli-
gibility for protection as a Unesco World Heritage Site.[8]
6 Historical background
Before the arrival of the Compana Bananera de Costa
Rica, a branch of the United Fruit Company, and ba-
nana plantations in the 1930s, vegetation in this area of-
fered a great deal of biodiversity in both plant and ani-

Remnants of UFCO occupation in Palmar Sur
mal resources. Resources available to Precolumbian in-
habitants in this alluvial plain consisted of riverine and
ocean resources, including mangrove forests located in
the Terraba and Sierpe Rivers.
Modern Landscape of Palmar Sur, Costa Rica
The rich alluvial soils of this region facilitated histori-
cal agriculture since the 1930s. The United Fruit Com-
pany dominated this southern region with banana planta-
tions as early as the 1920s in Parrita and Quepos. The
UFCO entered Palmar Sur in the 1930s under the name
of Compana Bananera de Costa Rica in an eort to avoid
antimonopoly legislature.[9] Today the landscape is still
carved into agricultural elds which are owned by co-ops
and consist of plantain, banana, and palm plantations.
7 Early researchers in the region
Scientic research in the alluvial plain, particularly on
United Fruit Company properties, began in the 1940s
with the work of Doris Zemurray Stone and Samuel
Lothrop. Lothrops work focused on excavation at a
handful of sites, one being Farm 4. His work aimed
to document all archaeological sites containing in situ
stone spheres, to record the number of spheres and their
3
dimensions, and to make detailed maps illustrating both
their arrangement and alignments.
After the work of Lothrop and Stone, research in the
area took a hiatus for nearly fty years. In the 1990s,
Claude Baudez and a team of researchers set out to es-
tablish a ceramic chronology of the region by observing
the change in ceramic styles over time.[10] This was ac-
complished by examining the drainage ditches that were
cut into the landscape by the UFCO. Research carried out
by Igenia Quintanilla, under the direction of the MNCR
from 1991-1996 was performed in the region under the
project titled Man and Environment in Sierpe-Terraba
focusing on settlement patterns, occupational sequences,
and resources utilized in the region.[11]
Francisco Corrales and Adrian Badilla, archaeologists
with the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, have performed
continuous research in the region since 2002. Their re-
search began in 2002 and focused on four archaeolog-
ical sites in the region containing stone spheres and of
which comprise a circuit. These sites include Grijalba,
Batambal, El Silencio, and Farm 6. The purpose of the
project was to assess the cultural signicance of the sites,
to protect the cultural heritage, in addition to beginning
research and studies at the sites.[12] Corrales and Badilla
produced a booklet entitled El Paisaje Cultural del Delta
del Diqus which provides a quick overview on the history
of the Diqus Delta, the history of banana plantations and
the UFCO, the natural environment, archaeological sites
in the region, and the importance of the Diqus region as
an UNESCO World Heritage Site.[13] Research has con-
tinued in the region by Corrales and Badilla focusing on
the archaeology and the Precolumbian political structure
in the Diqus Delta. Research emphasis was on chiefdoms
and their associated archaeological indicators. Their ob-
jectives were to study the archaeological sites containing
stone spheres in the Diqus Subregion to gain an under-
standing of community conguration, activity areas, se-
quences of occupation, and the recording of monumental
architecture.[14]
8 Current research
Research is currently ongoing at the Farm 6 site under
the direction of archaeologists at the Museo Nacional de
Costa Rica. The rst eld season in which archaeolog-
ical excavations were undertaken was in 2005. Objec-
tives during this eld season included dening the area in
which two mounds were located, sphere alignments, and
various excavations associated with mound 2. In 2007, as
second eld season was undertaken focusing on archaeo-
logical excavations of Mound 1. During this eld season,
a stone sphere was discovered in situ in association with
the mound.
4 12 REFERENCES

9 Tourism List of megalithic sites

Archaeo-tourism is a concept that is still relatively new in
Costa Rica. To date, the national monument of Guayabo
de Turrialba is primarily the only archaeological site open
for tourism. Tourism on a smaller scale is occurring at
the site of Farm 6 but is open to visitors upon paying a
nominal fee to tour the museum display and then tour the
grounds, viewing some of the discovery sites. It is no
longer necessary to have an appointment. Future plans
of the MNCR are to open the site to tourism on a larger
scale and to include other sites nearby in the region.
10 Myths
Numerous myths surround the stones, such as they came
from Atlantis, or that they were made as such by nature.
Some local legends state that the native inhabitants had
access to a potion able to soften the rock. Research led by
Joseph Davidovits of the Geopolymer Institute in France
has been oered in support of this hypothesis,[15] but it
is not supported by geological or archaeological evidence
(No one has been able to demonstrate that gabbro, the
material from which most of the balls are sculpted, can
be worked this way.)
Moeraki Boulders
12 References
[1] Six new sites inscribed on World Heritage List. UN-
ESCO. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
[2] The stone spheres of Costa Rica. BBC News. 29 March
2010. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
[3] Brendan M. Lynch (22 Mar 2010). University of Kansas
researcher investigates mysterious stone spheres in Costa
Rica. Retrieved 2010-03-24.
[4] National Academy of Sciences (1877). Samuel Kirkland
Lothrup. Biographical memoirs, Volume 48. National
Academies Press. p. 253. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
[5] Tim McGuinness. Costa Rican Diquis Spheres: Sphere
history. mysteryspheres.com. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
[6] Eleanor Lothrop (September 1955). Prehistoric Stone
Ballsa Mystery. Picks from the Past. Natural History.
Retrieved 2010-03-31.
[7] Gazetteer of Costa Rican Plant-Collecting Locales:
Diqus (or Diks) from the website of the Missouri Botan-
ical Garden

In the cosmogony of the Bribri, which is shared by [8] The stone spheres of Costa Rica. BBC News. 2010-03-
the Cabecares and other American ancestral groups, 29. Retrieved 2010-09-12.
the stone spheres are Taras cannon balls. Tara or [9] Villalobos 2005
Tlatchque, the god of thunder, used a giant blowpipe to
shoot the balls at the Serkes, gods of winds and hurri- [10] Baudez, et al. 1993
canes, in order to drive them out of these lands. [11] Quintanilla 1992
It has been claimed that the spheres are perfect, or very [12] Corrales and Badilla 2002
near perfect in roundness, although some spheres are
known to vary over 5 centimetres (2.0 in) in diameter. [13] Corrales and Badilla 2005
Also, the stones have been damaged and eroded over the [14] Corrales and Badilla 2005, 2007
years, and so it is impossible to know exactly their origi-
nal shape. A review of the way that the stones were mea- [15] Joseph Davidovits. Making Cements with Plant Ex-
sured by Lothrop reveals that claims of precision are due tracts (PDF). Retrieved 2010-08-13.
to misinterpretations of the methods used in their mea- [16] John W. Hoopes. Errors and Misinformation. Archived
surement. Although Lothrop published tables of ball di- from the original on March 23, 2013. Retrieved 2007-06-
ameters with gures to three decimal places, these gures 19. (mirror: Common Misconceptions)
were actually averages of measurements taken with tapes
that were nowhere near that precise.[16] Egitto, A. (2007). A GIS analysis
of the archaeological relationships
in the Diquis Delta of Southeastern
11 See also Costa Rica. Cleveland State Uni-
versity.
Olmec colossal heads Quintanilla Jimnez, I. (1992).
Prospeccin arqueolgica del
Barrigones of Guatemala Delta Sierpe-Trraba, sureste de
Costa Rica: Proyecto Hombre
Petrosphere
y Ambiente en el Delta Sierpe-
Stone ball Trraba (Informe 1)". Museo
Nacional de Costa Rica. Submitted
Kugel ball to MS.
 5

Quintanilla Jimnez, I. (2004). Las

esferas de piedra del Pacco Sur de
Costa Rica: descifrando el enigma
desde la arqueologa. Universidad
Autnoma de Barcelona.

Baudez, Claude; Borgnino, Natalie;

Laligant, Sophie; Valerie Lauthelin
(1993). Investigaciones arqueolg-
icas en el Delta del Diqus. Mex-
ico, D.F.: CEMCA. ISBN 0-00-
000000-0. OCLC 000000.

Corrales, Francisco; Badilla,

Adrian (2005). El Paisaje Cul-
tural del Delta del Diqus. San
Jos.: Museo Nacional de Costa
Rica-UNESCO.

Corrales, Francisco; Badilla,

Adrian (2005). Investigaciones
Arqueologicas en Sitios con Es-
feras de Piedra, Delta del Diqus.
San Jos.: Museo Nacional de
Costa Rica-UNESCO. Propuesta
de proyecto Departamento de
Anthropologa e Historia,.

Lothrop, S. K (1963). Archaeol-

ogy of the Diqus Delta, Costa Rica.
Cambridge: Papers of the Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and Eth-
nology 51. ISBN 0-00-000000-0.

Stone, Doris (1943). Preliminary

investigation of the ood plain of
the Ro Grande de Trraba, Costa
Rica. American Antiquity. 9 (1):
7488. doi:10.2307/275453.

13 External links
Stone Spheres, Diquis Delta, Costa Rica from
Landmarks Foundation
Costa Rican Stone Spheres, a website by archaeolo-
gist Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
6 14 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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