Angualasto

Angualasto lies in the arid Iglesia valley, east of the high Andes. Its pre-Hispanic inhabitants built dwellings of rammed earth and cultivated fields watered by an elaborate irrigation system. A main canal ran for more than twenty kilometres and served Angualasto and nearby Punta del Barro. The settlements belong to the local Angualasto culture, which flourished in the centuries before the Spanish conquest; a cleared road also crosses the desert towards Colangüil.