history

From the eleventh century, in northern Peru, the Aymaras, Atacameños and Diaguitas, established farming cultures strongly influenced by the Inca Empire. In fact it is an area of great archaeological and cultural wealth. The Cerro Pintado Geoglyphs and Lasana and Quitor Pukarás tell us about the high level of development  the original peoples of the area reached.

Of all the peoples,  the Collas stand out. They were authentic bearers of traditional Andean way of life through the preservation of many cultural patterns such as the pastoral economy in high places, and agricultural as potato and corn farming, the collection of carob and salt; house building, traditional medicine and divination techniques, musical instruments Erques, Quenas, Pinkullo, Sikus and Drums, the cult of mother earth and innumerable beliefs, rituals and social practices. The ancestral religion,  that far from being dominated by the new official religion, has coexisted with it in a new form that has been redefined as popular religiosity.

Closer in time we find  the Salitreras, the testimony of a glorious past. Finally, the use of nitrates was later replaced by copper mining.

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