Long before San Pedro de Atacama became an international tourist destination, the Licanantay people learned to recognize two decisive rarities: usable water and fertile land. From these, they developed a way of life that connected agriculture, herding and trade in one of the driest environments on the planet.
When people look at the Atacama Desert, they often imagine an empty territory. The arid and spectacular landscape seems to confirm that first impression: vast expanses of dry, infertile land, salt flats, mountains and vegetation that appears only in very specific places.
However, this view of Atacameño territory is incomplete. In the Atacama, life is organized around water. Where it reaches the surface through rivers, springs or underground flows, life becomes possible. After all, without water, there can be no village, herd, planting or harvest.
Even so, water alone is not enough. The Salar de Atacama basin contains salts that prevent most plants from growing across much of the territory. Fertile land is also needed, where irrigation can sustain crops.
In other words, life depends on the rare meeting of water fit for use and arable soil.
It was at these meeting points that the Licanantay people organized their lives in this inhospitable territory. Water sustains herds, villages and crops. Foraging supplements the food supply. Herding and llama caravans connect this network of resources across different landscapes and elevations.
For this reason, these factors cannot be understood separately. Together, they form a single adaptive system capable of producing, storing and circulating resources in a region where no settlement could be self-sufficient or obtain everything it needed on its own.
The Licanantay people are not a thing of the past
Before going any further, it is important to correct a common misconception. The Licanantay are not an extinct society that disappeared and left behind only ruins and archaeological sites. Indigenous communities remain present in the oases, in the ravines of the Loa River and in settlements near the Salar de Atacama.
Their traditional knowledge remains alive in agriculture, herding, community organization and ceremonial calendars. Festivals, canal-cleaning practices and celebrations tied to agricultural and livestock cycles continue to express their close relationship with the territory. This completely changes how the story should be told.
We are not speaking only about how ancient populations managed to survive in the desert. We are speaking about knowledge accumulated over generations, transformed over time and still recognizable in the way different communities relate to water, land, animals and the desert’s natural cycles.
Water and fertile land determine where life can flourish
The Atacama does not offer the same resources everywhere. Water and arable land occur in specific locations. That is why the Licanantay learned to recognize these differences and use elevations and landscapes in complementary ways.
Along the northern edge of the Salar de Atacama, water from the San Pedro and Vilama rivers, combined with underground flows, helped form the oases. Within them, the ayllus (cooperative family communities) form small islands of woodland and fertile land, separated by long stretches of dry terrain and salt flats.
Permanent dwellings and cultivated plots were located in the oases and irrigated areas. Farther afield were pastures and seasonal settlements used as the herds moved across the territory. Higher still, in the hills and high-altitude environments, there were other plants, firewood, wildlife and grazing areas.
This geographic distribution required movement. A family could grow crops in one place, keep animals in another and gather additional resources dozens of kilometers from home. The territory, therefore, did not end at the village boundary. People inhabited it by connecting different and often distant places.
In the desert, water determines where life is possible
In the desert, water is everything. It determines where life can take root, how many people a place can sustain, which plants can grow and how long a herd can remain. But locating a spring or living near a river is only the beginning. Water is not always available in the place, at the time or under the conditions needed for cultivation.
Much of the water that feeds the basin comes from the high Andes. Because rainfall is rare, snowmelt supplies the rivers, underground reserves and springs that descend toward the salar. In the San Pedro de Atacama area, the San Pedro and Vilama rivers made the formation of the oases possible. Understanding their courses, variations and water intake points is vital.
The Licanantay developed agricultural terraces, or andenerías, now known worldwide as emblematic features of Andean farming landscapes. They also built canal systems capable of carrying water to arable areas. The terraces made it possible to farm on slopes, while the canals expanded the irrigated area and distributed a scarce resource that could not be wasted.
None of this works, however, without social coordination. Communities also need to build walls, open, clear and maintain canals, organize irrigation turns and keep this infrastructure in working condition.
Water therefore does more than cross the landscape: it also shapes the distribution of tasks, responsibilities and relationships among families. The community practice of cleaning the canals continues to this day, demonstrating how deeply the maintenance of this infrastructure is woven into the social and cultural life of the Atacama.
Fertile land: another rarity in the Atacama Desert
If water is the first condition for agriculture, fertile soil is the second. The white crust of the salt flats makes this contrast especially visible. Where salts accumulate in excess, almost no plant can grow. Simply irrigating any patch of desert is therefore not enough to turn it into farmland.
This extreme salinity cannot be explained solely by the idea that the salar is “the ancient seafloor from another geological era.” The Salar de Atacama formed in a closed continental basin with no outlet to the ocean. As water descends from the mountains after snowmelt, it carries dissolved salts and other minerals toward the lower areas. Natural evaporation removes the water but leaves the salts behind, where they have accumulated over millenia. Cultivation is impossible on the salt crust because the salt makes the soil sterile.
That is why farming is concentrated in oases, ravines, riverbanks and low-lying river areas known as vegas, where water, sediments and relief create different conditions. The ayllus of San Pedro de Atacama are “islands” of fertile land surrounded by desert. Productive soil is the exception, recognized, occupied and revered for generations.
Even in these rare spaces, the land must be prepared and maintained. Agricultural soil is both a condition offered by the place and a landscape built through collective labor. After all, water without land and land without water solve nothing.
The Licanantay people were able to remain in the region through the combination of these two rarities, water and fertile land, and through the knowledge developed over generations by the Atacameño people to keep them productive.
Planting, harvesting and storage form a cycle
It should now be clear that planting cycles are possible only where water and arable land meet. In irrigated areas, the Licanantay grew maize, quinoa, potatoes, beans, squash and peppers. The combination of crops varied according to elevation, local conditions and historical period.
Algarrobo and chañar trees were also highly important. Their fruit could be eaten or turned into flour and beverages. But it is important to distinguish between activities: maize, quinoa and other foods were cultivated, while algarrobo and chañar were obtained through foraging and the management of trees that grew naturally in the oases.
Producing and harvesting, however, were only part of the work cycle. In an arid territory with so much environmental variation, part of the harvest also had to be stored. Storage structures associated with dwellings allowed past Licanantay communities to preserve maize, potatoes, beans, quinoa and gathered fruit.
Surplus production increased food security, of course, but it also served another purpose. What did not need to be consumed immediately for subsistence could enter exchange networks. This is where agriculture met the llamas.
The domestication of llamas changed the scale of Andean life
The llama did not become a domestic animal in a single place or at a single moment. Archaeological and genetic research points to a gradual process that unfolded in different regions of the Andes over thousands of years. During this process, human groups moved from hunting wild camelids to protecting herds, managing them and controlling their reproduction. Domestic llamas descend from wild guanaco populations.
This means it is not accurate to attribute llama domestication exclusively to the Licanantay people. The transformation took place over time among several distinct Andean populations. The Licanantay, however, incorporated camelid herding into a particularly complex economic and territorial system.
Llamas provided meat, fiber and hides. Herds could also represent family wealth. Before the arrival of horses, mules and donkeys brought by the Spanish, the llama was the main pack animal of the Andes.
It did not replace human effort, nor could it carry much weight on its own. Even so, llamas enabled the Licanantay to transport loads along high-altitude trails, across rocky terrain and over long distances. A single llama carried only a limited load, but a whole caravan greatly expanded what a group could move from one place to another.
If water and fertile soil made cultivation possible, llamas changed the scale of the system. Without them, oasis agriculture could have fed nearby communities, but it would have had far less capacity to connect isolated fertile lands, high-altitude pastures and distant markets. Long-distance trade and integration between environments would have had a significantly smaller reach.
Ancestral caravans connected the Andean world
The routes traveled by caravans linked the oases of San Pedro de Atacama to the Lípez Altiplano, the northwest of what is now Argentina, Tarapacá and different points along the Pacific coast. These connections changed over the centuries, but they made the Atacama both a territory of passage and a hub of interaction.
Archaeology has found tangible traces of this movement. There are trails formed by the repeated passage of animals, rest stops known as paskanas, remains associated with herds and geoglyphs near the routes. The desert, which may now appear to have no paths, was crossed by networks of trails known and used for generations.
Agricultural products, prepared foods, fibers, textiles, ceramics, minerals, metals and objects from distant environments traveled along these routes. Pacific shells reached the interior. Items produced in the oases journeyed to other regions. Materials from the Altiplano and trans-Andean areas found new destinations.
The contents of each caravan depended on the period, route and relationships among communities. We should not imagine a standardized form of trade resembling modern logistics. Many exchanges were connected to reciprocity, kinship, alliances and relationships maintained between families from different regions.
Llamas carried goods… and relationships, too
A caravan never carried goods alone. Travelers also circulated knowledge of routes, water sources, climate, cultivation, herding and mining. Techniques, styles of pottery and textiles, spiritual rituals and forms of social organization moved with them.
This circulation helps explain why San Pedro de Atacama became so important in the Andean world. Its oases produced food and provided places where people could stay. Its location made it possible to connect very different and distant environments. Knowledge of the routes also made it possible to negotiate passage and maintain relationships beyond the Salar de Atacama basin itself.
Trade, then, was not an isolated activity that took place after the harvest. It was part of how the territory functioned. Agricultural surplus sustained exchanges, and those exchanges brought products that did not exist locally. The herds made transport possible, while knowledge of the desert kept the entire system moving and continually evolving.
Agriculture and herding depended on each other
It is tempting to divide society into farmers established in the oases and herders who moved through the highlands. In reality, however, these activities were closely connected.
Agricultural villages depended on products, animals and materials from other elevations. Grazing areas, in turn, maintained relationships with centers where cultivation, storage and greater population concentrations were found. In many cases, families and communities operated across different spaces rather than choosing only one way of life.
This is why the llama should not appear in this story merely as a pack animal carrying sacks. Its domestication helped consolidate herding, diversified the available resources and made it possible to cross greater distances while taking and bringing back agricultural and craft products.
Likewise, cultivation should not be described merely as a human victory over aridity. Farming in the Atacama meant understanding the limits of water, recognizing the restrictions imposed by salinity, identifying where the soil offered the conditions for cultivation and collectively organizing the necessary infrastructure.
The result was not absolute control over the desert. It was something far more sophisticated: the construction of a way of life capable of working with the possibilities and constraints of each environment.
How does this history change a trip to the Atacama?
Learning about the history and culture of the Licanantay people changes the way you see the desert landscape. A canal is no longer just a ditch carrying water, just as a cultivated area is no longer merely a green patch in the panorama that appeared by chance or through nature alone. Most importantly, llamas cease to be simply cute Andean animals to photograph. Water, fertile land and llamas are part of a historical network of survival.
Understanding the Licanantay people therefore means recognizing that the Atacama has never been empty. It has been cultivated, traveled, named and organized for thousands of years. It remains a living territory, inhabited by communities that cannot be reduced to a mere memory of the pre-Columbian period.
As you plan your trip to the Atacama Desert, seek to experience the region beyond the postcard views. Atacama Connection can help you build an itinerary that combines breathtaking landscapes with local history and context, while respecting the pace and characteristics of each place. Among the experiences offered, Caravana Ancestral is sure to be a major highlight for anyone who wants to see firsthand how the Licanantay people live today and, of course, enjoy close contact with the llamas and Atacameño culture.
Sources consulted
Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino: Economy of the Atacameño peoples
Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino: Atacameño settlement patterns
Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile: Licán Antai
Estudios Atacameños: Las sociedades Formativas de San Pedro de Atacama
Chungara: La naturaleza de la expansión aldeana durante el Formativo Tardío en la cuenca de Atacama
Chungara: Geoglifos y tráfico prehispánico de caravanas de llamas en el Desierto de Atacama
Animal Frontiers: The domestication of South American camelids, a review
Estudios Atacameños: Cambios y permanencias en los ayllus de San Pedro de Atacama