An agro-pottery archaeological culture of the Calchaquí Valleys in northern Catamarca and southwestern Salta, part of the broader Argentine Northwest (NOA) cultural sphere; best known for elaborate anthropomorphic funerary urns used to bury children, held in museum collections worldwide, and for significant Aymara/altiplano cultural influence.
Conquered by the Inca Empire around 1480 and incorporated into Tawantinsuyu's southern reaches; its communities are considered ancestral/component to the later ethnohistoric Diaguita confederation of the same region.
Foundational archaeological survey of the Calchaquí valley cultures, including the Santa María funerary-urn tradition.