The Atacameño people come from old hunters and gatherers (30,000 - 10,000 B.D.) who settled in the area, taking advantage of the favorable conditions offered by the basin and creeks of the Loa and Copiapó rivers. In the XVth century, the Atacameño culture had a high development before the Inca arrived.
Ancestrally they stood out in the use of the metallurgy, pottery, textiles and techniques of culture in terraces.
The chronicler Mariño Lobera writes about this aspect of the culture:
«They live in villages divided in two ayllus, or halves, that characterize their politics and social organization. Each of these ayllus has its own major, whose badge of office is a silver handled baton...»

The Atacameño people have experienced successive stages and settlements, through a great cultural blossoming in s. III d. C. conserving still today characteristics of this past, in rituals, techniques of culture and manufacture of handcrafts. In addition it maintains his particular way of construction, where its rich ancestral inheritance is perceived.