Antofagasta de la Sierra is the northernmost
department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
Catamarca Province
Catamarca () is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province had a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km2. Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighbouring provinces are (clockwise, fr ...
in
Argentina.
The provincial subdivision has a population of about 1,300 inhabitants in an area of , and its capital city is
Antofagasta de la Sierra.
Volcanoes
The department is most famous for its volcanic activity. There are over 200 volcanos situated in the
Antofagasta de la Sierra volcanic field, the most notable of them being
Antofalla,
Carachi Pampa,
Alumbrera and
Galán
Cerro Galán is a caldera in the Catamarca Province of Argentina. It is one of the largest exposed calderas in the world and forms part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, one of the three volcanic belts found in South America. One of ...
.
The Galán volcano has the largest explosive
caldera
A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...
in the world.
Pre-history
There is evidence of
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
people in the region dating back about 8,000 years. Their diet largely consisted of wild
camelid animals. Seeds of
amaranth
''Amaranthus'' is a cosmopolitan genus of annual or short-lived perennial plants collectively known as amaranths. Some amaranth species are cultivated as leaf vegetables, pseudocereals, and ornamental plants. Catkin-like cymes of densely pack ...
grain dating from 4,500 years ago and evidence—grinding artefacts—that they may have been used as food since 7,000 years ago have been found.
References
External links
Antofagasta de la Sierra webpage(Spanish)
Departments of Catamarca Province
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