Pucara de Tilcara

A fort on a hill

The pucará was a pre-Inca fort on a hill above the Quebrada

The Pucará de Tilcara is a pre-Inca fortification on a hill outside the town of Tilcara, in Jujuy. The location was chosen to be easily defensible and to give good views over a long stretch of the Quebrada de Humahuaca.

The Omaguaca

The Omaguaca built the fortified town around the 12th century

The Omaguaca tribe settled the area around the 12th century. Experts in agriculture, weaving and pottery, they were also renowned warriors. At its peak the pucará held over 2,000 people in small stone buildings with no windows.

2,000inhabitants at the pucará's peak

The Incas

The Incas took the pucará in the late 15th century

In the late 15th century the tribes of the Quebrada were conquered by the Incas under Tupac Inca Yupanqui. They used the pucará as a military outpost and to secure the supply of silver, zinc and copper mined nearby. Their rule ended with the Spanish in 1536.

Rediscovery

Ambrosetti and Debenedetti rediscovered the site in 1908

Juan Bautista Ambrosetti and his student Salvador Debenedetti catalogued over 3,000 artifacts in their first three years of digging. From 1911 they cleared part of the site and rebuilt some structures. It opened as an archaeological museum in 1966.

The plaque

A plaque at the site says the culture did not disappear

A commemorative plaque says that for much of the 20th century, archaeology in Argentina was thought to salvage the ashes of a lost culture. It says the voices and struggles of indigenous groups have shown that idea to be false.