Pucará de Tilcara

The location was strategically chosen to be easily defensible and to provide good views over a long stretch of the Quebrada de Humahuaca.

At its peak, the pucará covered up to about 15 acres (61,000 m2) and housed over 2,000 inhabitants, living in small square stone buildings with low doorways and no windows.

The Incan domination of the area only lasted for about half a century, and ended with the arrival of the Spanish in 1536, who founded the modern town of Tilcara in 1586.

In 1908, the ethnographer Juan Bautista Ambrosetti of the University of Buenos Aires and his student Salvador Debenedetti rediscovered the site and catalogued over 3,000 artifacts during their first three years of digging.

A small botanical garden with cactus species native to the area, located next to the pucará, is also worth visiting.