, a village and
Likan Antai settlement in the interior Atacama Desert , a large, state-owned copper mine The Atacama is sparsely populated, with most towns located along the Pacific coast. In interior areas, oases and some valleys have been populated for millennia and were the location of the most advanced pre-Columbian societies found in Chile.
Chinchorro culture The Chinchorro culture developed in the Atacama Desert area from 7000 BCE to 1500 BCE. These peoples were sedentary fishermen inhabiting mostly coastal areas. Their presence is found from today's towns of
Ilo, in southern Peru, to
Antofagasta in northern Chile. Presence of fresh water in the arid region on the coast facilitated human settlement in these areas. The Chinchorro were famous for their detailed
mummification and funerary practices.
Inca and Spanish empires San Pedro de Atacama, at about elevation, is like many of the small towns. Before the
Inca Empire and prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the extremely arid interior was inhabited primarily by the
Atacameño tribe. They are noted for building fortified towns called
pucarás, one of which is located a few kilometers from San Pedro de Atacama. The town's church was built by the
Spanish in 1577. The Atacameño were an extinct Indigenous South American culture, different from the
Aymara to the north and the
Diaguita to the south. The oasis settlement of
Pica has Pre-hispanic origins and served as an important stopover for transit between the coast and the
Altiplano during the time of the
Inca Empire. During the Inca Empire
Moyos Moyos, whose tentative homeland lies in
Tarija Valley, were settled in the desert as part of a
population transfer scheme. The coastal cities originated in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries during the time of the
Spanish Empire, when they emerged as shipping ports for
silver produced in
Potosí and other mining centers. At the end of the 18th century, Carlos IV defines the southern border of the Viceroyalty of Peru at the port of Nuestra Señora del Paposo.
Republican period from
Chile Route 5. These forests were once devastated by the demand of firewood associated with saltpeter mining. During the 19th century, the desert came under control of
Bolivia, Chile and Peru. With the discovery of
sodium nitrate deposits and as a result of Chilean expansion plans, the area soon became a zone of conflict and resulted in the
War of the Pacific. Chile annexed most of the desert, and cities along the coast developed into international ports, hosting many Chilean workers who migrated there. With the guano and saltpeter booms of the 19th century, the population grew immensely, mostly as a result of immigration from central Chile. In the 20th century, the nitrate industry declined and at the same time, the largely male population of the desert became increasingly problematic for the Chilean state. Miners and mining companies came into conflict, and protests spread throughout the region. Around 1900, there were irrigation system of
puquios spread through the oases of Atacama Desert.
Abandoned nitrate mining towns The desert has rich deposits of
copper and other
minerals and the world's largest natural supply of
sodium nitrate, which was mined on a large scale until the early 1940s. The
Atacama border dispute over these resources between Chile and Bolivia began in the 19th century and resulted in the
War of the Pacific. The desert is littered with about 170 abandoned nitrate mining towns, almost all of which were shut down following the invention of synthetic nitrate in
Germany in the first decade of the 20th century (see
Haber process). The towns include
Chacabuco,
Humberstone, Santa Laura, Pedro de Valdivia, Puelma,
María Elena, and Oficina Anita. The Atacama Desert is rich in metallic mineral resources such as copper, gold, silver and iron, as well as nonmetallic minerals including important deposits of boron, lithium, sodium nitrate, and potassium salts. The Salar de Atacama is where
bischofite is extracted. The Atacama Desert is also the world's largest source of
iodine-bearing minerals, with some areas having iodine concentrations hundreds of times larger than the average levels in Earth's crust. These resources are exploited by various mining companies such as Codelco, Lomas Bayas, Mantos Blancos, and Soquimich.
Pollution In recent years, large amounts of used clothing imported from overseas have begun to accumulate in portions of the desert. The desert is estimated to receive around 39,000 tonnes of illegally dumped used clothing each year, according to the highest available estimates. Because of the dry conditions, they do not decompose at the normal rate, and fires have exposed nearby residents to air pollution. == Astronomical observatories ==