干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The survey records of the Azapa Valley (UTM coordinates (datum WGS84) 795.600 N y 19.362.000 E; 795.000 y N 19.378.000 E), located in the North of Chile, present a settlement pattern of burial mound complexes distributed along the valley’s terraces and hill skirts near runoffs and wetlands during the Formative period. Because of this, we suggest that an ideological organization of incipient farmers existed, which was related with the burial rituals and the offering deposits made in the mound construction in the desert landscape. The burial mounds were visible from different sectors of the valley, built in huaca trails up to the Indigenous-Hispanic contact period. This research is based on an extensive and intensive prospection, with the purpose of determining the burial mounds location, defining the distance between the mounds and water resources, measuring the occupation history of the mound complex area, and determining the visibility degree between the different mound sectors. The discussion of these objectives has provided interesting information, which we will be analyzed with the new Landscape Archaeology theories.