measures of personal rights, tolerance, and inclusion issues, including its acceptance of the LGBT community. The country has legalized cannabis, same-sex marriage, prostitution and abortion. Uruguay is a founding member of the United Nations, OAS, and Mercosur. Etymology The country name of Uruguay derives from the namesake Río Uruguay, from the Indigenous Guaraní language. There are several interpretations, including "bird-river" ("the river of the uru, via Charruan, being a common noun of any wild fowl). The name could also refer to a river snail called (Pomella megastoma) that was plentiful across its shores. One of the most popular interpretations of the name was proposed by the renowned Uruguayan poet Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, "the river of painted birds"; this interpretation, although dubious, still holds an important cultural significance in the country. In Spanish colonial times, and for some time thereafter, Uruguay and some neighboring territories were called ("Eastern Bank [of the Uruguay River]"), then for a few years the "Eastern Province". Since its independence, the country has been known as "", which literally translates to "Republic East of the Uruguay [River]". However, it is officially translated either as the "Oriental Republic of Uruguay" or the "Eastern Republic of Uruguay". History Pre-colonial Uruguay was first inhabited around 13,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers. It is estimated that at the time of the first contact with Europeans in the 16th century there were about 9,000 Charrúa and 6,000 Chaná and some Guaraní island-settlements. There is an extensive group of thousands of man-made tumuli known as "Pechito Paloma" in the eastern part of the country, some of them dating back to 5,000 years ago. Very little is known about the people who built them as they left no written record, but evidence has been found of agriculture and domesticated dogs. In 1831 Fructuoso Rivera, Uruguay's first president, organized the final strike of the Charrua genocide, eradicating the last remnants of the Uruguayan native population. Early colonization The Portuguese were the first Europeans to enter the region of present-day Uruguay in 1512. The Spanish arrived in present-day Uruguay in 1516. The indigenous peoples' fierce resistance to conquest, combined with the absence of gold and silver, limited European settlement in the region during the 16th and 17th centuries. Uruguay then became a zone of contention between the Spanish and Portuguese empires. In 1603, the Spanish began to introduce cattle, which became a source of wealth