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Argentina: North - Antofagasta
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ntofagasta it means "house of the sun".
Implacable, vigilant sun of the robust work of people and pertinaz in its fight against the cold mountain wind.
Framed by the volcano Azufre, the Archibarca hill, the Incahuasi, Abra del cerro Blanco, the hill Gordo and the Vicuñorco hill and the mountain ranges of Laguna Blanca and the Culampajá, Antofagasta de la Sierra range is located to 500 km of the city of Catamarca, immersed in the Puna catamarqueña and with the Torreón that characterizes it and locates like natural landmark.
The three populations of greater importance, Antofagasta de la Sierra range, El Peñón and Antofalla, are located between 3200 and 3500 m.s.n.m. and they are framed in these imposing landscapes in which the fertile fertile valleys, the colored volcanos and hills play different resistances with the bottom from desiert.
Diverse investigations developed in the last decades, have shown the high archaeological potential of the department of the Antofagasta de la Sierra.
Antofagasta was witness of the occupation of human groups at least 10,000 years ago - in the same beginnings of the Holoceno- as they demonstrate the made archaeological investigations. From these early occupations to the present time, diverse processes were lived on cultural change that have marked the evolution and development of the populations that happened in a same space.
Antofagasta de la Sierra reflects the increasing complexity of the societies puneñas, from old hunters to land-pastoral groups, that under new socioeconómicas modalities modified their way of life.
The life in the desert puneño had a great one breaks in his history at the time of the "contact" Hispanic-native, marking the beginning of the aim of the local indigenous societies.
The natives who found the Spaniards in which at the moment are territory catamarqueño were the diaguitas, that belonged to the ándida race. This culture soon received the influence of currents of amazonian culture and, of the civilization Inca.
The valleys, the gorges, the handbags and mountainous areas of Catamarca were populated by numerous tribes whose names derived from the place in that they lived or of the cacique. The geographic location of the tribal establishments in which today it is Antofagasta, corresponded to the Apatamas.
Kakán or cacano, language very difficult spoke to pronounce. Later, in second half of century XVII, already they spoke quichua. Its economy was based fundamentally on agriculture. They used the artificial irrigation, they constructed drains, dams and terraces in slopes of hills to cultivate. Pope, zapallo, maize and poroto cultivated; with the fruit of the carob tree they made metheglin and añapa, drunk euforizantes by its alcohol content.
Turkey hens of the mount, ostriches, ducks, vicunas and guanacos hunted; from these last ones in addition to meat they obtained wool for his weaves. They were potters, they made pots of clay or cooked mud, plates, glasses, pipes and ballot boxes that served as féretros for their deads.
In which to construction one talks about, their houses were of stone in the mountain, quincho and ramada in underground valleys, or house-well of two or more meters of depth. They were important, militant communities and iron defenders of his earth, traditions, customs and religion. In century XVII a population of approximately 13,000 people calculates, of who 3,000 or 4,000 were soldiers.
Bishop Trejo and Sanabria (jesuita) created the Curato of London in 1607, catamarqueño included/understood all west: Santa Maria, Andalgalá, Pomán, Tinogasta, Fiambalá and Antofagastade la Sierra. Several were the priests designated to the front of this Curato, until in 1678 it appears Masterful Don Bartolomé de Olmos y Aguilera, founder of the present city of Belén.
The franciscanos parents came to the province of Catamarca, from the beginnings of the colonization, leaving their evangelizadora track. Already in century XIX, the sovereignty of Catamarca on the region of the Puna, he saw himself dominated by the Bolivian occupation from 1795 to the war with Chile in 1879, and soon to 1899 it corresponded to him to the Army of Chile. Soon of the adjustment of limits with Bolivia and solved the bordering question with Chile, the Puna de Atacama in eastern sector returned to the Argentine sovereignty.
The 21 of September of 1943, the old Region of Atacama recovers, that happened to constitute the department of the Antofagasta de la Sierra.  |
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