Costa Rica’s southern reaches were first inhabited by the nomadic Chibchas and Diquís peoples, whose relics now lie smothered in dense mainland jungles. These groups vied for territory with the Boruca and Guaymí, whose burial sites have been found on the sacred Isla del Caño. Spanish conquistadors marched into the region in the mid-1500s, meeting fierce resistance from the Boruca, in a vain search for gold; in the end, though the indigenous populations were nearly decimated, the Spanish remained generally disinterested by their newly acquired land. The coastal area fell into an isolated backwater, neglected by distant colonial rulers, for several centuries. In 1938, the United Fruit Company arrived, and planted bananas across the valleys of the Sierpe and Coto-Colorado Rivers. The subject of protest in the late 20th century, the country’s largest indigenous communities now live in isolated mountain retreats in this region.