Vessel in Tiahuanaco style - Height 12 cm - Place of discovery: Pukará de Quitor (province Antofagasta) - Museum San Pedro de Atacama - Chile - 1976

At the Salar de Ascotán in northern Chile. It is situated in the Antofagasta Region at an extreme altitude of around 3,716 metres above sea level – nestled within the breathtaking scenery of the Altiplano. The vegetation differs drastically from that of the surrounding desert. Whilst the surrounding area is dominated by shrubs, special perennial grasses and herbs grow right on the edge of the salar. The volcano in the background is (presumably) San Pedro (6,145 m). – Chile – 1976

Laguna Lejía lies at an extreme altitude of around 4,350 metres in the Puna de Atacama. You can see flamingos foraging in the lake. In the background are several volcanoes, including the Chiliques (5,778 m). It is an important mountain sanctuary for the local population, featuring a series of prehistoric ritual and logistical sites, some of which are estimated to be over a thousand years old. At its summit lies a 15th-century Inca ritual site. – Chile – 1975

Rock paintings at Taira on the Río Loa in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. These engraved and painted depictions of llamas are attributed to the Neolithic Atacameños. - Book: Picture 41 - Chile - 1976

Pucará de Lasana, an abandoned Atacameño village on the Río Loa in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The Atacameños practised terraced farming with artificial irrigation and built their dwellings close together so as not to waste the barren arable land. - Book: Picture 53 - Chile - 1976

The Río San Pedro de Inacaliri (often simply called the Río San Pedro) has carved this canyon into the high plateau of the Chilean Puna. The striking, block-like cliffs consist of thick ignimbrite deposits (volcanic pyroclastic flow sediments). In the background rises the Palpana volcano. It is a massive stratovolcano, approximately 6,040 metres high, in the Chilean Andes near the border with Bolivia. – Chile – 1976

Snuff set - Origin: Quitor - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (province Antofagasta) - Chile - 1976

Tablet male - Origin: Coyo Oriental - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (Province of Antofagasta) - Chile - 1976

Handle of a snuff box from the Atacameños (found at Coyo Oriental), made of carved black wood with shell inlays (width at top: 7 cm). Formally, the depiction is reminiscent of the central figure of the Sun Gate at Tiahuanaco (cf. Figure 124). Museo San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. - Book: Picture 78 - Chile - 1976

Tablet female - Origin: Quitor - Museo San Pedro de Atacama (Provincia Antofagasta) - Chile - 1976

Arrowheads - in natural glass or meteorite showers - Neolithic period - Origin: Sequitor Alambrado, San Pedro de Atacama - Museum San Pedro de Atacama - Chile - 1976

Anthropomorphic jug from the Second Phase of the Atacama culture (height 19 cm) in the characteristic black pottery. Museo San Pedro de Atacama, Chile - Book: Picture 54 - Chile - 1976

Abstract anthropomorphic bottle - Second phase of the Atacameña culture - Height 18,5 cm - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (Antofagasta province) - Chile - 1976

Two anthropomorphic bottles, naturalistic left 19 cm, abstract right 18,5 cm - Second phase of the Atacameña culture - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (Antofagasta province) - Chile - 1976

Vessel Incisa - diameter 18,5 cm - Atacameña culture, last period of the second phase - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (Antofagasta province) - Chile - 1976

Carob wood duck - length 18 cm - Atacameña culture - Origin: Quitor - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (province Antofagasta) - Chile - 1976

Basket with figure with axe and 3 javelins - diameter 35 cm - Atacameña culture second phase - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (Antofagasta province) - Chile - 1976

Detail of a basket with figure with axe and 3 throwing spears - diameter 35 cm - Atacameña culture second phase - Museum San Pedro de Atacama (Antofagasta province) - Chile - 1976

Skull with a headband from an Atacameño grave of the Second Phase at the Quitor 6 site in the Atacama Desert. The grave contained only the skull, without the rest of the skeleton. Such ritual skull burials have not yet been recorded at any other site in South America. Museo San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. - Book: Picture 55 - Chile - 1976

Female skull with hair band - Atacameña culture second phase - Origin: Coyo Oriental - Museum San Pedro de Atacama - Chile - 1976

Skull of a child - Second phase of the Atacameña culture - Origin: Quitor (province of Antofagasta) - Museo San Pedro de Atacama - Chile - 1976

Mummy of a young woman - Second phase of the Atacameña culture - 300 BC - Origin: Solor - Museum San Pedro de Atacama - Chile - 1976

Skull of a man with Bonnet-Turban - with a blanket with geometrical figures - Atacameña culture second phase - Origin: Coyo Oriental - Museum San Pedro de Atacama - Chile - 1976

Mummy of a woman with child - Atacameña culture second phase - blanket with borders - volcanic rock and turquoise necklace - Origin: Sequitor Alambrado - Museum San Pedro de Atacama - Chile - 1976

The Río Salado in the Antofagasta region of Chile, in the heart of the Atacama Desert. The river rises near the famous geothermal springs of El Tatio at an altitude of over 4,200 metres. As it flows, it feeds green wetlands (Vegas) and carves deep into the canyons of volcanic rock. It eventually flows westwards and joins the Río Loa as a major tributary. – Chile – 1976

The Chilean Exploration Company, a subsidiary of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, had been operating the copper mines at Chuquicamata since 1905. Together with the Braden Copper Company and Anden Copper Mining, these three North American companies controlled 95 per cent of copper mining. As copper was the country’s most important source of foreign exchange, the nationalisation of the copper mines became one of the most important political tasks. In 1971, Salvador Allende nationalised the copper industry, a measure that even the military junta was unable to reverse following its coup. - Book: Picture 171 - Chile - 1976

The copper mines of Chuquicamata, situated at 2,800 metres in the Puna de Atacama. The reserves of copper ore in this, the world’s largest open-cast copper mine, are estimated at around one billion tonnes. - Book: Picture 169 - Chile - 1976

Chuquicamata is the world’s largest open-cast copper mine and is situated in the heart of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The mine’s enormous pit is more than 4 kilometres long, 3 kilometres wide and over 1,000 metres deep. – The photograph shows the extracted ore being smelted at extremely high temperatures and processed into pure copper at the adjacent Chuquicamata copper smelter (Fundición). – Chile – 1976

The huge copper smelter and industrial facilities at the Chuquicamata copper mine in the Chilean Atacama Desert. In the foreground, settling ponds (thickening tanks) and extensive processing areas can be seen, whilst in the background, smoking chimneys and the barren slopes of the desert mountains rise up. Chuquicamata (often called ‘Chuqui’) belongs to the Chilean state-owned mining company Codelco and has shaped global copper production for over a century. – Chile – 1976

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