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This article presents the state of the art concerning the archaeological research carried out in the Magdalena Valley in Colombia, from the end of the Pleistocene to the late Holocene. Data and interpretations from more than fifty years of archaeological research carried out in the valley of the Magdalena River are presented, including descriptions of the main physiographic features, landscape changes and adaptive strategies during different periods, focused on the dynamics of cultural change in the lowlands of the Low and Middle Magdalena basin. This work provides a synthesis of issues such as chronology, organization of lithic technology, subsistence, settlement systems, mobility, and mortuary practices. The integration of results obtained from different lines of evidence allows proposing models to advance explanations of presence or lack thereof, and type of archaeological evidence. It also includes considerations about the “scattered” occurrence of high quality technological and stylistic evidences, traditionally linked to “Formative” settlements or “classic” contexts characterized by outstanding assemblages of ceramics and goldsmithing with chronologies between 2800BP to 1400BP. At present such evidences show discontinuity in the landscape along the Valley. In contrast, the  relatively less elaborate late realizations - framed within the so-called “Funerary Urns Horizon” of the Magdalena basin – reoccur in meadows, recent terraces and hills, and demonstrate occupations during the last thousand years BP, including contact with Europeans since the 16th century.