Fortress sights in Argentina

1. Pucará

   • Tilcara, Argentina
   • Sights › Fortress

   The reconstructed pre-Columbian fortification, the pucará, is 1km south of the center across an iron bridge. Its situation is undeniably strategic, commanding the river valley both ways and, though the site was undoubtedly used before, the ruins date from the 11th to 15th centuries. The 1950s reconstruction has taken liberties; worse yet is the earlier, ridiculous monument to pioneering archaeologists bang where the plaza would have been. Nevertheless, you can get a feel of what would have been a sizable fortified community. Most interesting is the ‘church, ’ a building with a short paved walkway to an altar; note the niche in the wall alongside. The site itself has…

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2. Quilmes

   • Argentina
   • Sights › Fortress

   This Pre-Hispanic pucará (indigenous Andean fortress) is Argentina's most extensive preserved ruin. Dating from about AD 1000, the complex urban settlement covered about 30 hectares (74 acres), housing perhaps 5000 people. The Quilmes people abided contact with the Incas but could not outlast the Spaniards, who, in 1667, deported the last 2000 to Buenos Aires.

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