Poblamiento 

Prehispanic 
The combined use of the archaeological, linguistic evidences and etnohistóricas to analyze the characteristics of the prehispanic poblamiento of Venezuela, show, in all the cases, the presence of cultural influences of multiple origin that you/they fused inside the current national territory. The studies carried out between 1935 and 1944 by different archaeological missions point out, on one hand, the presence of a western axis N-S, through which influences would have arrived so much of Central America as of the OR of Suramérica and for the other one, the existence of a cultural axis N-S in the east of Venezuela that would have channeled the influences coming from the AND of Suramérica in passing toward the Antilles, as well as those coming from the NE of Suramérica that you/they would have spread toward the YOU of the subcontinent. As much in the east as in the occident of Venezuela, these big migratory axes gave origin to the penetration of diverse patterns, those which later on entered in contact when taking place traverse migratory movements AND-OR and vice versa.  conformed to this way a pattern of poblamiento routes and cultural dispersion that  would resemble each other to the form of a " H ". On the base of this theory of the migrations prehispanic Venezuelans, other complementary models have been elaborated, according to those which the existence of these 2 big migratory routes N-S in the AND and the OR respectively, they would have given origin to a cultural dicotomía: the occident populations would have been characterized by the cultivation of the corn and a pottery decorated with reasons colored policromados; in contrast, the populations of the east cultivated the yucca and they had a pottery decorated with reasons and modeling parentheses. The history of the before Columbus farming societies would have been determined in consequence by the interaction of cultural influences that you/they crossed between east and occident. Another similar hypothesis in connection with the poblamiento of Venezuela, outlines that the migratory waves formed 2 trunks: one Westerner characterized mainly by movements of human groups and cultural influences coming from the OR of Suramérica and Central America that would have originated cultures like the timoto-cuica, the achagua; and another oriental whose origin would be located in the amazon basin. The prehispanic migratory waves have also been characterized as belonging to 2 big families linguistic South Americans: the arawak and the caribe whose more remote origins have been located in the central region of Suramérica. In general, it has been considered that the oldest sedentary groups that settled in the current Venezuelan territory were of filiation linguistic arawak and to them they are attributed the introduction and development of the agriculture. These populations arawakas would have constituted kind of a basic ethnic stratum for Venezuela that would have broken or broken into fragments with the later irruption of an oriental migratory wave that would have extended also toward the occident of Venezuela going by the current territory of Colombia, originating this way a cultural division between oriental caribes and western caribes. It is supposed that the continuous presence of dispersed toponímicos from the Orinoco until the central region of Venezuela, it could infer in this the presence of you pierce of population of possible filiation caribe. Also,  can explain to himself the influence caribe toward the occident, for the presence of indigenous groups of that filiation in the lake of Maracaibo and the mountain of Perijá. Jointly to these big migratory currents of arawakos and caribes it could have other migrations, maybe of smaller intensity that you/they also left their print. It is the case of some Meso-American features as the ball game, autosacrificio of blood or the use of the beard that were present among the guamos, otomacos and guamonteyes of the Orinoco and that of the sacrifice rites and human victims' degollamiento, among the caribeses, very similar to the denominated tlacaxipeualiztli of the Mexican nahuas. 
Just as we have seen, the ethnology, relating linguistic data, etnográficos and archaeological,  has been able to determine a model of prehispanic migrations in the one that stand out the movements made along 2 axes N-S, located to the AND and the OR of Venezuela and a series of lines of flow among one and other, which would constitute expansible, recurrent or sporadic population movements. From the archaeological point of view this theory gets rich when pointing out, besides these big lines of migratory flow, nodal cultural points in the territory. With the archaeological evidence, Venezuela stops to be in passing a simple crossroad or area of the migratory waves, and  becomes a center of fork of an important number of human groups, those which, for the processes of adaptation to the new atmospheres where they settled, and the miscegenation of cultures, new social forms that served from archetypes to other populations of neighboring territories took place. In such a sense, we can settle down 3 big historical-social periods for the analysis of population's currents that contributed to conform the society before Columbus Venezuelan: 
to) hunters' Migrations: The oldest archaeological evidences indicate us that the first population waves that penetrated the Venezuelan territory at least 15.000 years to. C., they were constituted by human groups that derived their subsistence of the hunt of mammals and of the gathering of fruits and wild roots. Apparently, the old hunters cohabited at least during certain time, with a megafauna characterized by mastodons, horses, megaterios and gliptodontes. As consequence of the end of the glaciaciones around 12.000 years to. C., climatic conditions different to the current ones reigned. There was possibly bigger humidity, and the most abundant flora allowed the survival of the hervíboros of the megafauna. The hunters of that time were part of the migratory wave that  came from North America where you/they had arrived from Asia crossing the strait of Behring in a date that could be considered between 28.000 and 40.000 years to. C. The projectile tips that these hunters manufactured were made with stone nuclei, and their forms remember the devices that the big hunters of the call plane tradition manufactured", which is characterized by tips for weapons arrojadizas in an oval way, with parallel sides and both sharpened ends. The presence of this tips in the south of North America, Mesoamérica and the coast Pacific of Suramérica, allows to see the existence of human migration in address NS. But, in what moment and how is  dispersed of that main group the branch that strays toward the NE of Venezuela and whose main exponents find them until the present in early archaeological places of the state Falcon? The most obvious terrestrial route would go by Central America,  would enter to the subcontinent for Colombia and of there  would go toward the NE reaching Venezuela. But the evidences found until the present in Colombia don't check that has existed that migratory road, since the discoveries carried out until today by the Colombian archaeologists only indicate the presence, from 12.000 to 14.000 years to. C., of hunters that possessed a very rudimentary lithic and bony industry, completely different to the instrumental one specialized of the hunters of the NE of Venezuela. 
b) recolectores Migrations: The end of the society of hunters, seems to have been contemporary with the climax of the big climatic changes that you/they marked the development of the Quaternary one. They possibly happened extensive modifications of the old Venezuelan coast as consequence of the general rising of the level of the sea, reason why many of the old coastal areas were submerged by the waters, being changed the characteristics of the fauna and the flora maybe also in this regions. These changes determined, on one hand, the disappearance of the megafauna that until then it seems to have been associated with the hunters and for the other one that took place a general redistribution of the terrestrial fauna, which could have influenced so that those populations or part of the same ones, they looked for their subsistence in the marine fauna. The abundance and relative stability of the marine resources gave him so much to the Venezuelan recolectores as to those of the rest of the continent, the opportunity to form more sedentary communities. Until the present, the archaeological evidences indicate that the area of bigger concentration of these groups recolectores was in the N of Venezuela. They were present in the peninsula of it Gave birth to, around the 4.000 to 5.000 years to. C., and it is supposed that they had a rudimentary industry of carved stone, possible survival of techniques used by the old hunters. The archaeological places located in the costs of the states Sucre and Anzoátegui and in the island of Cubagua they testify the development of a society specialized in the exploitation of the marine environment, which abandoned the stone like matter prevails, to manufacture devices of shells of giant snail (Strombus jigs) such as chisels, raspers, projectile tips, recipients, etc. This capacity adaptativa that seems to also have included the art of navigating, allowed the expansion of the marine recolectores toward the Antillean islands, many of which were still uninhabited, becoming discoverers and first residents of the insular lands therefore. There were recolectores groups that possibly migraron to the S, following the coast Atlantic of the NE of Suramérica giving origin to the development of new communities that you/they conserved many of the such ancestral characteristics as the use of the stone to manufacture work devices. 
c) farmers' Migrations: The last 2 millennia before the beginning of the Christian era they constituted for the South American natives the final phase of the experimentation with the cultivation of plants which was foundation of the ulterior development of the agriculture. This period was also of readjustment and social consolidation for many ethnoses; the step of an economy recolectora to an agricultural economy implied the search of new lands that allows to deploy the technologies in a new way of social life equally. It was possibly in this context when they took place the migratory movements in Suramérica that will determine the final characteristics of the poblamiento prehispanic Venezuelan. 
In the east of Venezuela, the basin of the Orinoco constituted one of the poles of attraction for human groups with a pottery whose characterization allows to establish relationships with other cultures of the OR of Suramérica and of the amazon basin. These human groups brought I get technical of cultivation and prosecution of the bitter yucca (Manihot utilissima), already known by indigenous groups of the NE of Suramérica. On the base of the vegetative agriculture, they were formed 2 important population centers whose culture had after irradiating toward the east of Venezuela, grace to the human displacements that happened in later periods. In the first floor Orinoco, the ancestral place of Ravines, originated what we know as tradition Ravines, around 1.000 to 600 years to. C. whose payees spread toward the central coast of Venezuela forming or contributing to form new human establishments in the region of the lake of Valencia and in the coast of the current state Carabobo around 200 years to. C. Other groups barrancoides migraron toward the NE of Suramérica invading the N of the amazon basin and the oriental region of Venezuela. In the half Orinoco, for similar date, the region of Parmana to the S of the state Guárico constitutes the seat of small villages tipificadas for the places of the grotto Ronquín, starting from which a new well-known cultural tradition was developed as Saladero. The same as the barrancoides, these individuals will begin toward beginnings of the Christian era, a migratory movement toward the NE of Venezuela, fusing with the groups barrancoides that had already arrived also to this region and displacing or absorbing to the old populations recolectoras that still for that date they occupied the coast and the islands of the east of Venezuela. Of the fork of these traditions, a new well-known tradition arose as coastal saladoide whose payees began a quick migratory movement along the Antillean insular arch, displacing and absorbing in turn to the recolectores of this islands, and arriving in Puerto Rico around 200 years to. C. These emigrants coming from the territory that then would be Venezuela, they took the Antilles the knowledge of the pottery, the agriculture and the rules of sedentary life that then would be foundation of the social life of the before Columbus ethnoses of this region. 
During the first centuries of the Christian era, the half Orinoco received a new wave of well-known population as tradition Arauquín whose characteristic alfareras allows to point out to the amazon basin as the area possible of origin. Those recently arrived ones gave sample of possessing a vigorous and organized culture, since they introduced important changes in the way of the autochthonous indigenous populations' life. Leaving of the half Orinoco, groups belonging to this tradition emigrated toward the valleys of Aragua and the basin of the lake of Valencia occupying, for final of the prehispanic period, practically all the valleys of the central coast including the valley of Caracas. On the other hand, the arauquinoides began to move toward the first floor Orinoco around 200 years d. C., looking for maybe to settle in the fertile riversides that skirted the river but that they were occupied by the ethnoses barrancoides. This movement laughs below it seems to have been slow, but it culminated in the XVI century of our era with the exercise of the total control of the hábitat orinoquense on the part of the arauquinoides. Although we can not establish a parallel one historically between these populations and the well-known ethnoses, if it is possible to say that the late villages of the Orinoco where  has been pottery arauquinoide they were seat of historical human groups of language caribe. The same thing can say of the lake of Valencia, the valleys of Aragua and the valley of Caracas, fact that can give us an analysis base to understand the importance of this wave migratory orinoquense in the poblamiento prehispanic Venezuelan. 
To the SO of Venezuela, in the last centuries before Christ, the plains high Westerners welcomed another well-known migratory wave as complex Pipe of the Bear and complex The Betania whose starting point can be located the NE of Colombia or of the Ecuador. These individuals were able to design and to execute complex land works that included mounds for housings, wearing shoes that served as communication roads and dikes for the control of the floods and cultivation fields formed by long artificial ridges of earth that were good to preserve the plants of the excess of water during the grown of the rivers. These human groups extended on great part of the territory of the current states Barinas, Hurry and Portuguese, corresponding historically in general sense with the busy territory for the well-known indigenous groups as achaguas and betoyes. In the region S of the lake of Maracaibo, the archaeological evidences point out for 600 years to. C., the arrival of related immigrants' groups possibly with the ethnoses that you/they inhabited the coast Colombian Caribbean from the XII century. The same as those of the Orinoco, cultivated and they consumed the bitter yucca and they settled along the rivers that descend of the western slope of the Andean mountain range. On the other hand, around 1.100 years to. C., other immigrant groups, acquaintances as phases The Danto and The Guamo, also affiliated possibly to ethnoses that the N of the current Colombia inhabited, they settled along the rivers Escalante and Zulia, giving origin to big towns where it was not only cultivated the yucca, but also the corn. It is possible that the migratory waves already signal, be in the origin of the current indigenous populations of the occident of the lake, affiliated to the family linguistic caribe and others to the chibcha. The NE of Venezuela seems that it was entrance door of one of the migratory currents that had bigger influence in the ulterior conformation of the aboriginal culture of the center-western region of Venezuela. The groups that arrived with her, possibly came from the occident of Suramérica and they introduced practical agrarian with the cultivation of the corn. Their more remote predecessors, they can be located in the phase Hokomo, in the Venezuelan Peasant, around 1.000 years to. C., and in the phase Lagunillas in the coast NE of the lake of Maracaibo, around 400 years to. C.. These immigrants as well as the autochthonous groups to those that gave origin were distributed along the low valleys of the NE of Venezuela, forming big agricultural villages that had a marked ceremonial character. It proves of they are it the big cemeteries or necropolis found in their towns, in those that an important handmade production is evidenced, dedicated particularly to satisfy the religious necessities. Also, they transformed many grottos and small caves into adoratorios or cemeteries, where a great wealth of material votivo was also deposited. The way of life of these human groups influenced greatly in the communities that occupied the territory of the current states Lara, Falcon, Yaracuy and Trujillo, since for the XVI century in that area villages existed densely populated, characterized by an extraordinary handmade and productive development, which served from support to the Spanish colonization. Around the century IX or X d. C., became present in the high regions of you Walk them Venezuelans, well-known human groups as phases San Gerónimo, Mucuchíes and Miquimú. These possessed technical agricultural and specialized cultivations that allowed them to colonize the high valleys and the neighboring lands to the moors. They built small villages, each housing possessed underground silos to store the crops, they practiced the cultivation in terraces and the employment of ponds and channels of irrigable to irrigate the sementeras. All these elements relate this groups with the prehispanic Andean societies of the NE of Suramérica whose way of life expanded along the mountainous ecosystems of the occident of Suramérica. M.S.O. /I.V. 
XVI-XX centuries 
The process resident of the current territory of Venezuela began from the distant times of the man's appearance in the NO of the South American subcontinent. In that long process that began more than 12.000 years ago,  is distinguished the stage of the absolute prevalence of the Aboriginal ones clearly in the occupation of the space geographical Venezuelan, of that that inaugurated the Hispanic population's penetration. During the millennia in that the indigenous poblamiento the only one that extended on the surface of the country, was it was established the pattern that up to now has governed the space distribution of the inhabitants. The aboriginal presence before the arrival of the Spaniards was shown, in the first place, in the coastal-mountainous arch that skirts of NE to NOT the extensive basin orinoquense, in second place, in the wide region of the Plains and in third place, in the riversides of the main rivers of the Guayana. In none of those areas a homogeneous autochthonous poblamiento existed, since in them, on the contrary, forms of occupation of the very diverse territory coexisted, which reflected the variety in the ways of life, the different evolution tecnoeconómica of the communities and the unequal environmental conditions where these acted. 
In the coastal-mountainous fringe  scattered in the time of the initial contact with the Europeans, the aboriginal population with the types of more complex hábitat, so much for the intensity of the human presence as for the stability of the groupings that the same one formed. In such a fringe, the poblamiento stains were located essentially in you Walk them and the system coriano, and in a secondary way, in the center-coastal and coastal-oriental areas and in the basin of the lake of Maracaibo. The indigenous poblamiento of you Walk them and the system coriano constituted the most important human covering in Venezuela before the incorporation of the Spaniards. The conquerors found the most numerous communities and the most stable establishments there. In the Andean region, according to the data contributed by the columnists and the recent archaeological investigation, villages were developed more or less permanent, thanks to the emergence of an agricultural technology of certain efficiency. The construction of platforms or terraces to cultivate the slopes, the use of underground silos to reserve foods, the employment of ponds or dikes to store the water of the rivers, the gulches or the rains used in the watering of the cultivations, elements tecnoeconómicos that made sprout a sedentary life in the breast of nuclei of modest proportions were. The timotes and the cuicas that extended mainly for the territory that corresponds today to the states Merida and Trujillo in approximate form, left perseverance of their sedentariedad in the toponimia of numerous places. Current towns as Timotes, Jajó, Mucuchíes, Mucurubá, Mucutuy, Tabay, Chiguará, Acarigua, Torondoy, was villages of the indiadas of those denominations. Many towns and Andean cities that today takes names imposed by the conquerors, were founded in the before Columbus villages. The city of Merida is summoned in the table where the Indian tatuyes had its called neighborhood Tatuí; the current town of The Muzzle constituted the main seat of the group indigenous mirripú; the small city of Lagunillas was simply the village that the natural ones Zamu or Jamun or Xamue called. In the lands that now form the state Táchira, centers populated as Queniquea, Basket, Seboruco, Táriba, Lobatera, Borotá, remembers the nuclei of communities of extraction aruaca or caribe. The apparent profusion of the villages and before Columbus communities of you Walk them it doesn't allow to qualify their poblamiento of dense or very dense, according to the sense that those terms make in the modern societies. The characteristic morfológicas of the Andean landscape and the simplicity of the technical elements that their residents prepared, they could only tolerate very small human establishments whose importance is derived, more than of their magnitudes, of its stable character. In narrow connection with the autochthonous poblamiento of you Walk them they were the communities located in the system coriano and their neighboring spaces. In this region, the Europeans found almost so important indigenous populations numerically as those of the Andean area. The human presence imposed it there the caquetíos and jiraharas, together with the gayones, cuibas, coyones, achaguas, ayamanes and cuicas. Almost all those tribes, to often depend on sedentary activities, knitted with villages of relative permanency the fundamental net of their poblamiento. As much the conquerors as the columnists were shown impressed by the frequency of the aboriginal villages in many places of this district. Particularly Nicolás of Federmann who traveled almost that whole territory between 1530 and 1531, had occasion of checking in the lands that today forms the states Falcon, Lara and part of Yaracuy, the existence of diverse establishments of certain stability, and great number of inhabitants. This hábitat type, evidently, was structured because some of these groups developed practical agricultural based on the use of reservoirs or you dam to water with the waters of rivers or gulches the cultivation fields. For those the caquetíos, to the arrival of the Spaniards, grouped in villages, some of which became cities, villages or towns during the colonial period. Current centers as Choir, Capatárida, Cumarebo, Zazárida, Cabure, Adícora, nuclei that those natives designated with same was or resemblances names. Many other neighborhoods disappeared with the Conquest, as Todariquiba, Jurejubero, Jurraque, Tomadoré, Carona, Carao. They also formed the caquetíos nuclei in the valley of the Cloudy one and the savannas of Barquisimeto, those which, together with those that had in the oriental coast of the lake of Maracaibo and along the river Yaracuy, confirmed the importance of this poblamiento. 
The autochthonous hábitat of the center-coastal, coastal-oriental areas and of the basin of the lake of Maracaibo, in the moment of the initial contact with the Spaniards, it didn't show bigger complexity, neither for their vigor neither for the stability of their establishments. In general, the indigenous partialities of the first 2 areas, as the caracas, tomuzas, chaymas, cumanagotos, píritus, and of the basin of the lake of Maracaibo, as the onotos, bobures, quiriquires, pemenos, chinatos, obtained its subsistences of very simple activities, such as a wandering agriculture, the exploitation of marine resources, the hunt and the gathering in the forests, the fishing in rivers and lagoons. These conditions tecnoeconómicas originated a poblamiento semipermanente, integrated by very small villages that moved, inside certain territorial limits, in function of the transfer of the cultivations. For such a reason, the occupation of the space in those regions was very not very consistent. Not even in the places where the conquerors and columnists point out the most numerous communities, like in the valleys of Aragua and Caracas, the oriental coast, the surroundings of the lake of Valencia and the southern bank and the N of the lake of Maracaibo, stable establishments existed. The human covering was here represented by a dispersion of minuscule villages, formed by 3 to 6 cabins, with very low levels of permanency. In the region of the plains the before Columbus hábitat was characterized by certain diversity, by virtue of the different degrees of efficiency of the communities to obtain its resources. In the low plains the dispersed poblamiento prevailed, integrated by nomadic bands whose subsistences came from predatory activities. In the high plains they were located, on the other hand, indigenous partialities that to combine the gathering, the hunt and the fishing with agricultural activities, they stayed stable during almost the whole year. They formed this way these aboriginal ones, mainly those that were located near the piedemonte of you Walk them, neighborhoods that acquired dimensions of some importance in some cases, like it happened to Acarigua, town that Federmann described as great village and where caquetíos and cuicas cohabited. However, a contained hábitat didn't prevail in these plains, since the levels tecnoeconómicos of their residents didn't guarantee a total sedentaridad. In the extensive lands of the current Guayana a very unstable prehispanic poblamiento existed and of reduced volume. In general, the right riverbank of the Orinoco and the flowing riversides of their main ones, they were the places preferred by the wandering bands that you/they obtained their provisions in diverse ways of gathering. Their villages had, consequently, the transitory character that imposed a fragile adaptation to the means. The predominant nomadismo in this region was translated in the unstable dispersion of its autochthonous residents. 
The stage begun by the incorporation of the Hispanic demographic component in the poblamiento of Venezuela was strongly conditioned by the geographical design that the before Columbus residents traced. Nevertheless, the Europeans imposed on that design novel forms of occupation of the space, which responded to the way of life that you/they brought with them. Two fundamental characteristics reflected from their beginnings that new hábitat. In the first place, the conquerors implanted poblamiento units that were constituted in social lifelong centers and of course, in necessarily stable nuclei. In second place, those units could only work and to be developed in narrow and continuous connection, that which began the formation of a true net of human establishments. The first Hispanic contacts with the territory that later would be Venezuela, they made arise small very outlying stains of European poblamiento. This periferismo responded, on one hand, to the necessity of founding position establishments, that is to say that served of bases to explore the unknown spaces of the interior, and for other, to the commercial character and spoliator of the expeditions that carried out, with the authorization of the Crown, companies Spanish matters. This last feature prevailed in the motives of the creation and in the characteristics of the operation of all the nuclei that the conquerors settled down during the 4 initial decades of the XVI century. The rescue with the natives, the prey of their products, the kidnapping and the purchase of Indians to enslave them, the search of minerals and other wealth, they gave origin to small villages of European coastal very not very stable. New Cádiz, in Cubagua that arose toward 1514 like a Hispanic homestead of searchers of pearls, expanded in few years to disappear in 1544 with the exhaustion of the ostrales. It served, however, the ephemeral New Cádiz to impel the process resident of Margarita island, because of this they obtained the neogaditanos diverse provisions. They appeared this way in the territory margariteño the oldest permanent Hispanic centers in Venezuela. In their small valleys the cultivations of autochthonous and European plants prospered, and the cattle raising acquired certain development. The effect of this situation was such that in 1538 about 400 neighbors or family bosses already lived in Margarita. The hábitat of that island served, also, of base to explore other areas, mainly the one that would be later the Venezuelan east.