Andean Northwest historical timeline

This is the part of Argentina with the longest human history, and for most of it the country’s centre of gravity was here rather than on the Atlantic.

Before the Inca

The Quebrada de Humahuaca has been a route between the altiplano and the lowlands for perhaps ten thousand years. Settled agricultural societies built fortified pucaras on the ridges — the one above Tilcara is the best known — and the Diaguita of the Calchaqui valleys built substantial stone towns, of which Quilmes is the largest surviving.

The Inca

The empire extended into the northwest in the fifteenth century, incorporating the region as Collasuyu’s southern edge, building the road system and placing garrisons. On Llullaillaco in 1999, three children were found at 6,739 metres, sacrificed around 1500 and preserved by the cold in a state that makes them among the best-preserved bodies from the ancient world.

Spanish and the silver road

The Spanish came from Peru, not the Atlantic, founding the oldest surviving Spanish town in what is now Argentina in 1553, then Tucuman, Salta and Jujuy. The region prospered supplying mules, textiles and food to the silver mines of Potosi. The Calchaqui peoples resisted for over a century, and after their final defeat in 1667 the Quilmes were force-marched a thousand miles to Buenos Aires.

Independence

The northwest was the front line against Spanish forces coming south from Peru. Tucuman is where independence was declared in 1816, and Salta’s gaucho militias under Guemes fought a long guerrilla defence.

Decline

When trade reoriented to Buenos Aires and the Atlantic, the northwest became peripheral, and it has been Argentina’s poorest region since.