ARCHAEOLOGICAL RUINS

Salta displays a great archaeological wealth. Much of its sites still remain unstudied. The most known and often visited are:

SANTA ROSA DE TASTIL RUINS
Located at a distance of 100 kms from Salta, by the Quebrada del Toro Gorge and 200 ms away from the town of the same name. It is a dependency of the Museo Antropológico de Salta Anthropological Museum as it is small site museum. The University de la Plata did a study of them in 1967.

Some reconstructed sectors were found with marked roads, market squares, dwellings and burial sites. In the surrounding mountains can it is possible to see the outlines of ancient farm plots and areas covered with rock carvings . The studies carried out there have not unravel the mystery as to why this pre-Hispanic city was abandoned by its inhabitants, leaving behind all kind of objects.

QUILMES RUINS
At 245 kms from Salta. Although belonging to the Province of Tucumán, this site is approached from Cafayate, across routes 68 and 40.

The first studies done in this place go back to the late 19th century but the most recent ones, as well as the reconstruction, took more than two years and were carried out in 1978 through an agreement between the Provincia de Tucumán Provincial Government and the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires University Faculty of Philosophy and Literature.

In this ancient town almost 4000 people used to dwell. It was built on top of the Cerro Alto del Rey Mountain. Taking advantage of the unevenness of the ground, two fortresses were built on the hillcrests. Some remnants of dwellings can be seen on the hillsides and towards the South, it is possible to see a big dam that was employed for watering the fields and terraced agricultural fields.

The sad fate of its latter inhabitants is too well known. They originally moved here coming from elsewhere, established themselves here upon finding an abandoned city, and lived here until the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. When the Calchaquí rebellion headed by the false Inca Pedro Bohorquez took place, the natives where exiled and had to go away on foot and under extreme conditions, which took a dreadful toll among its members. They rebuil their homes in the locality of Quilmes in Buenos Aires, as it is known today.

CHURCAL RUINS
It is located at 1800 m.a.s.l. in the Alto Valle Calchaquí High Valley, between the localities of Seclantás and Molinos, some 180 kms from Salta, through the Cuesta del Obispo and 8 kms from Molinos

The remains, dating back to between 1100 to 1300 A.D., are located 100 ms above the Calchaquï River.

The Universidad Nacional de la Plata National University carried out the investigations of this site. Some 500 enclosures were classified, among them children urns, a kind of artificial mounds that served for two apparent purposes, as garbage deposit and cemeteries.

The remains found there show that the job of the ancient inhabitants was mainly pottery (Santa María and Churcal horizons), along with the making of cloth, woodworking, basketry, and rope twining.

INCAHUASI RUINS
There only remain vestiges of what once was "the House of the Inca" or Incahuasi. In the year 1890 Burmeister studied the site.. A small sized room was all the archaeological remains that had proven Inca origin. There are also other rectangular rooms, sidewalls, niches and scattered signs of a road net.

Among them, stands out the "Sillón del Inca" (Seat of the Inca), a stone seat leaning against the wall of one of the rooms and a niche with a trapezoidal shape, in which canter stone was plastered with mud. The once existing roof was made with beams of wood brought from different places and covered by mud, straw and stone slabs.
After crossing the Incamayo River the "Mirador" or Viewing Point appears, magically preserved and strategically situated. Made of mud, with a floor of slab stones: only a person bowing down could enter.

To reach this site you have to leave Salta by the Ruta Nacional No 51 National Route up to the locality of Ingeniero Maury, 61 kms away. From there you make an ascent by a steep pathway to the Abra del Gólgota, climbing some 1000 ms, to descend afterwards to the site by a path that runs through mountains containing a great variety of fossils.

You can also follow the Inca trail coming from Pascha.

OTHER RUINS OR ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES:

La Paya. In the Calchaquí Valley, nearby the locality of Cachí.

Las Pailas. Near Cachi, the major part of the archaeological pieces from this site is in the site museum.

Fuerte de Tacuil: On the access road to Molinos.

Graneros de la Poma: Indigenous storage tower or silos build on the mountain.

Titiconte: Nearby Iruya. Semi underground constructions, as an insulation against the harsh weather.