Camarones Agua Salada Geoglyphs (Mid-Camarones Spring Terrace)
Agua Salada Ravine Figures · Mid-Camarones Spring Lines
Formative to Late Intermediate·Camarones Formative–Gentilar spring cult·🇨🇱 Arica y Parinacota Region, Camarones, Agua Salada Spring Terrace, Chile
About
About Camarones Agua Salada Geoglyphs (Mid-Camarones Spring Terrace)
Spring-terrace oasis field 7 km upstream from Camarones Pacific mouth (250 m), perched 15 m above fault-fed Agua Salada brackish spring — the only perennial water in 40 km of ravine. Holds 12 small-scale geoglyphs on saline terrace: 8–15 m coptolithic anthropomorphs with oversized heads, 10 m feline, and 28 m linear ditch with intermittent pits (dots). Technique: shallow 12 cm scrape to halite crust, edged with halite blocks to prevent salt heave. Associated with Chinchorro evaporite-cured fish middens and Late Formative textiles. Function: spring shrine for ravine travelers needing mineral water management (dilution with sweet water from upstream).
Why it mattersOnly Atacama geoglyph field tied to brackish spring hydrology.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01How mineral water managed—ritual vs dilution signaling
Theories
- 01Spring-shrine hydrology marker
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.600 BCE – 1100 CE
- Period
- Formative to Late Intermediate
- Culture
- Camarones Formative–Gentilar spring cult
- Builders
- Camarones spring communities
- Purpose
- Spring shrine marking brackish perennial water source
- Abandoned
- c.1400 CE
- Rediscovered
- 2002 Camarones water survey; 2018 Conanoxa extension
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
600 BCE
Earliest halite-scrape figures
2002
Hydrological survey records spring + geoglyphs
On the ground
Structures & features
19.1820° S · 70.1850° W · 250 m · 2 mapped features
Agua Salada Anthropomorphs
geoglyph15-m oversized-head figures above spring
19.1800° S · 70.1830° WHalite Ditch Dots
earthwork28-m ditch with 6 halite-edged pits
19.1840° S · 70.1870° W
Gallery