Environment and Location
These pre-Hispanic societies occupied the highlands of the Upper Loa River basin, the inland regions of Antofagasta and the Lípez region of the southern Bolivian Altiplano. The vegetation of the Puna environments and foothill ravines –grasslands, spiny shrubland and wetlands—were the best locations for raising the camelid herds that these people kept, while the rivers that flowed down from the high mountains provided enough water to allow the development of intensive agriculture.