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This article analyzes the economic organization networks and the movement of agro-livestock sector manufacturing and products entering through the port of Arica from Castile and the Indies from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Thereby, this article seeks to examine the commercial movement and routes that united this city with the Real Audiencia of Charcas. These inquiries led to the conclusion that two-way trade took place in the port of Arica, which made use of ancient Andean routes, creating a series of socio-cultural interactions and cultural changes in the Hispanic and indigenous populations of the area due to the active link between the village and imperial cultural/economic dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Arican foothills north of Chile two important cultural traditions interacted from the tenth to the seventeenth century. The first tradition originated in the western valleys and is known archeologically as Arica Culture. The second, originated in the Chilean Altiplano, was related to the Aimara and the Postiwanaku kingdoms, specifically Carangas. Through the study of their architecture and ceramics, we have been able to defi ne the cultural connections that both traditions forged between them. The socio economic success reached by these cultures was the base used by the Incas first and later by the Europeans to settle in the region, although they utilized different strategies of control. The article proposes a synthesis of this complex history, highlighting the social and cultural changes that occur in the high valleys of Arica. To realize this objective we have utilized historical and archeological methodologies as well as research that has been intensively developed within the last thirty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]