Archaeological sites and fresh water runoff points at hyperarid coastal Atacama Desert

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a research on settlement systems of pre-Columbian peoples living on a section of the coast of the Atacama Desert which lacks of river estuaries. The coastline is located in Region de Antofagasta, where over 1,000 archeological sites have been discovered. When locating those sites and setting them on a map of the aforementioned coastline, we observed that the settlements were grouped in certain areas, alternating
between stretches of areas absent of any settlements. Under the assumption that the ocean’s productive potential is the same along the entire length of the coast, it would have been expected a more or less homogeneous distri-
bution of settlements. Given the previous observation, the archaeological sites distribution was compared against other environmental parameters that may have influenced the choice of locus for these settlements. Observations ultimately stablished that placement for settlements was determined primarily by the presence of fresh water runoff points commonly known as aguadas.