The history of northwestern South America, focusing on the Amazon basin, is put into perspective using the prevalent models of social organization in the lowlands of the Amazon for more than a thousand years. The proposed analysis makes it possible to understand the modes and periods of occupation of this territory. The article concludes that the region should be perceived as a whole, irrespective of which populations inhabited it in the different periods. Thus it is apparent that several waves of occupation took place. The first, Arawakan, wave established a spatial scheme that was retained by the following ones, adapting it to their needs. Furthermore, the author proposes approaching the installation of the Jesuit missions with the same perspective, since they also appropriated the spatial arrangement they found upon their arrival. Only after their expulsion did the partitioning of the territory begin according to European criteria.