A pre-hispanic past transformed into a wonder of the modern world

When the Spaniards, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, arrived in what we know today as Honduras, a large number of indigenous people already inhabited this territory, from the islands and lowlands of both coasts to the high mountains of the interior.

Lencas, Tolupanes, Misquitos and Chortís were visibly defined population that had delimited their own territories. There were other groups, still with unknown names, that lived in the jungles of Olancho and Mosquitia. The Cave of the Giant located very close to the city of Marcala in the center-west of the country posse the first records of human presence in Honduras. Its presumed that drifting hunters and gatherers used this immense rocky space to rest and cook their food from during the Archaic Period (10,000-4,000 BC) through the Formative Period (1760220 AC). Los Naranjos was known as another pre-columbian indigenous settlement of great importance, in fact it was one of the largest protolenca settlements in southern Mesoamerica. At the present it has been converted into an ecoarchaeological park . A city built many years before most of the great buildings of Copan were built. Copan Ruinas is now the most important archaeological destination in the country. The famed Mayan city long lasted thanks to a long dynasty of 16 leaders during the Classic Period, between 250 and 900 AC. These leaders built what was the most artistic and powerful Mayan city in the south. Unquestionably a World gem.