A flourishing culture existed in Panama until the Spanish conquest in the 1500's. After that point, like other cultures invaded by the Spanish, it rapidly ceased to exist through a combination of disease, starvation, enslavement and outright murder.

Much like the Mimbres culture, the Coclé culture produced elaborate figures painted on ceramics as well as effigy figures. Much of what is known about Coclé comes from expeditions conducted by Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.