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 produced both and that they belong to pre-Hispanic culture. { find no reference in any of the standard works to a chin- chilla skin in petroglyph carvings and figures. Special inter- est attaches therefore to Figure 54, in which ts represented not only the lama but a chinchilla skin spread out as if to dry.

San Pedro de Atacama is one of the oldest settlements in South America, and at first it was altogether under control of that power that issued first from the Viceroyalty of Peru and, later (after 1776), that of Buenos Aires. It formed a part of the iufendencia, or district, of Potosi. The governor of Potosi in 1787 described the partido of Atacama as including in its political or ecclesiastical orbit widely scattered com- munities, even so distant a place as Susques, near the eastern border of the high basin country, having been annexed to the parish of San Pedro in that year. After the wars of independ- ence it was created a part of the Bolivian departamento of Atacama and the town became the capital. Trade routes between the coast and many interior points converged at San Pedro and thence mule tracks led, one to Calama and another more directly to Ascotan, along the mountain border. When Atacama was lost to Bolivia as a result of the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) the province was renamed Anto- fagasta, and the city of that name became the capital, leaving San Pedro as an isolated tributary town. The railway, the nitrate business, and the control by sea conspired to move the seat of authority and commercial power from its place at the meeting point of inland trails westward to the coast where it is today. The changing orientation of the life of a desert com- munity is a characteristic feature as one dominating control gives way to another in that outside world whence spring the main impulses of trade and political control.