Atacame

The Atacameño live in the Atacama Desert and on the high plateau of northern Chile, northwestern Argentina and southern Bolivia. Their own language was Kunza. They protected their villages with stone-walled forts known as pukara and worked ceramics, copper and gold, and settlements such as San Pedro de Atacama, Quitor and Chiu-Chiu grew up in the oases.

The Tiwanaku were their first known conquerors, and in the fifteenth century the Inca conquered them and built roads from the Salar de Atacama into northwestern Argentina. Diego de Almagro's Spaniards arrived in 1536, and the region was annexed to Spain in 1557.