The Greatest Archaeological Wonders in South America

27 places in 7 countries · updated 13 October 2026

1. 01 Nazca Lines

   Líneas de Nazca

   Peru · 25.6 km from Nasca14.697° S 75.135° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The problem, as archaeoastronomers Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni concluded after a rigorous statistical review in 1990, is that there are so many lines running in so many different directions across the desert that some of them are going to line up with an astronomically significant point on the horizon purely by chance — with enough lines pointed in enough directions, you can always find an alignment if you look for one.

   Did you know? The geoglyphs were made between about 500 BC and AD 500, the earliest by the Paracas culture before the Nazca.

   More about Nazca Lines →

2. 02 San Agustin archeological park

   Parque Arqueológico de San Agustín

   Colombia1.884° N 76.296° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The statues range from small carvings to monumental figures. Many combine human and animal traits, with jaguars, crocodiles and bats among the creatures depicted, and they were once painted in red, yellow, black and white; traces of colour survive on a few.

   Did you know? In 1859 cinchona-bark traders hauled three statues and a large stone sarcophagus into the town of San Agustín.

   More about San Agustin archeological park →

3. 03 Tiwanaku

   Bolivia · 39.7 km from Desaguadero16.555° S 68.673° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The ceremonial core is a group of platforms and enclosures. 5 m high, and excavations there have uncovered offerings of human and llama remains; a deep looters' pit still scars its top. Next to it, the Kalasasaya is a large rectangular enclosure. Inside stands the Gateway of the Sun, carved with a front-facing figure holding two staffs. It was probably moved there from somewhere else, and like other gateways at the site it was never finished.

   Did you know? Around the gateway's central Staff God march 48 smaller carved figures: 32 with human heads and 16 with the heads of birds.

   More about Tiwanaku →

4. 04 Cueva de las Manos

   Argentina47.150° S 70.667° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The pigments were entirely local chemistry: iron oxides for the reds and purples, kaolin clay for white, a mineral called natrojarosite for yellow, manganese oxide for black — a full palette pulled straight out of the surrounding Patagonian rock and soil rather than traded in from anywhere else.

   Did you know? There are more than 2,000 hand images in and around the cave.

   More about Cueva de las Manos →

5. 05 Sacsayhuamán

   Saqsaywaman

   Peru · 2.2 km from Cuzco13.508° S 71.982° W

   

   What you come to see are the three massive terrace walls beside a great plaza that could hold thousands of people. The longest is about 400 m, and the walls stand around 6 m tall.

   Did you know? In the 1536 siege of Cusco it was the main base of Manco Inca's army, estimated at 100,000 or more, against about 190 Spaniards.

   More about Sacsayhuamán →

6. 06 Sillustani

   Peru · 18.2 km from Puno15.721° S 70.158° W

   

   These towers, known as chullpas, were built to hold the dead above ground rather than below it. Each one sheltered the remains of an entire family group, most likely of noble rank, laid in a crouched, foetal position; the cold, dry air of the plateau preserved many of the bodies naturally. The doorways are small and almost always face east, towards the rising sun.

   Did you know? The Jesuit lexicographer Ludovico Bertonio recorded in 1612 that Aymara speakers called the stone towers uta amaya, houses of the soul.

   More about Sillustani →

7. 07 Chan Chan

   Peru · 6.2 km from Trujillo8.111° S 79.075° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   Building began around 850 CE, and from roughly 900 the city was the seat of Chimor, a kingdom of the north Peruvian coast. At its height its dense core of about 6 square kilometres may have held 40,000 to 60,000 people.

   Did you know? The palace walls narrow from about five metres at the base to one metre at the top, a profile thought to help them survive earthquakes.

   More about Chan Chan →

8. 08 Paracas Candelabra

   Candelabro de Paracas

   Peru · 13.4 km from Pisco13.794° S 76.309° W

   

   Who made it, and why, is still debated. Pottery found close by has been dated to around 200 BC, the time of the Paracas culture, and Maria Reiche, the great researcher of the Nazca lines, studied the figure in the 1950s and linked it to the great geoglyphs further south. Stones laid around its edges may be later additions.

   Did you know? Maria Reiche is said to have spent about six months in the 1950s measuring the figure and analysing the direction in which it points.

   More about Paracas Candelabra →

9. 09 Machu Picchu

   Peru13.163° S 72.546° W

   

   The estate was built in the 15th century, most likely for the Inca emperor Pachacuti after his conquest of the Urubamba valley, as a royal retreat rather than a town. Radiocarbon dating of human remains places its occupation from around 1420 to about 1530. Perhaps 750 people lived there, mostly retainers drawn from many parts of the empire; genetic studies show that they came from the Andes, the coast, Ecuador and Amazonia.

   Did you know? Machu Picchu sits at about 2,430 metres, more than 1,000 metres lower than Cusco, which gave it a noticeably milder climate than the Inca capital.

   More about Machu Picchu →

10. 10 São Miguel das Missões

    Brazil · 38.6 km from Santo Ângelo28.549° S 54.556° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The mission was founded in 1632 by the Jesuit fathers Cristóvão de Mendoza and Pablo Benevidez, and in 1687 it was re-established on its present site. It grew quickly: more than 4,000 people lived here by 1690, and at its height the population approached 7,000.

    Did you know? Every Guarani family dwelling had a single opening, its door, and every door faced towards the church.

    More about São Miguel das Missões →

11. 11 Kuélap

    Peru · 21.6 km from Chachapoyas6.418° S 77.923° W

    

    The walls are the first marvel, and the way into them the second. Kuélap has three entrances, and the main one is a deep, tapering passage between high walls that narrows until only one person can pass at a time, a design that made the interior easy to defend and gives arriving visitors a sense of being funnelled into another world.

    Did you know? The highest sector, Pueblo Alto, could only be entered through two narrow gaps in a wall 11.5 metres high.

    More about Kuélap →

12. 12 Ahu Tongariki

    Chile27.126° S 109.277° W

    

    The setting is what makes the row unforgettable. Behind the ahu the sea breaks on black rock; inland rises the eroded crater of Rano Raraku, the quarry where nearly every moai on the island was carved, barely a kilometre away, and to the east the bulk of the Poike peninsula closes the view.

    Did you know? The platform's rear wall rises about four metres, and the one restored pukao crowning a statue is nearly two metres tall.

    More about Ahu Tongariki →

13. 13 San Ignacio Miní

    Ruinas Jesuíticas de San Ignacio Mini

    Argentina · 21.6 km from Hohenau27.255° S 55.532° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The mission was first set up around 1610 by the Jesuit priests José Cataldino and Simón Maceta in the Guayrá region, in today's Brazilian state of Paraná. Raids by slave-hunting bandeirantes forced it to move in 1632, and it reached its present site only in 1696. The name Miní, Guaraní for small, distinguished it from the larger San Ignacio Guazú in Paraguay.

    Did you know? The house in San Ignacio where Quiroga later lived and wrote is now a museum dedicated to him.

    More about San Ignacio Miní →

14. 14 El Fuerte de Samaipata

    Bolivia · 5.2 km from Samaipata18.178° S 63.819° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The carving began long before the Incas. The Chané, an Arawak-speaking people, occupied the site from around 300 AD and started shaping the rock into a ceremonial centre. In the late 15th century, probably towards the end of the reign of Tupac Yupanqui, the Inca empire absorbed the area and Samaipata may have served as a provincial capital, with all the buildings that status required.

    Did you know? Samaipata is one of the few sites where Chané, Inca and Spanish building survive side by side, including a Spanish house with Andalusian-style features.

    More about El Fuerte de Samaipata →

15. 15 Moray

    Peru · 9.1 km from Urubamba13.329° S 72.196° W

    

    The leading theory is that this wasn't ornamental at all but a working agricultural research station: a place to test how different crops and even different varieties of the same crop — dozens of native potato and maize types — performed under specific combinations of sun exposure, wind, humidity, and soil before deciding what to plant where across the wider realm.

    Did you know? Anthropologist John Earls identified upright stones on the terraces that seem to mark sunset shadows at the equinoxes and solstices; locals call them ñustas, or princesses.

    More about Moray →

16. 16 Huaca de la Luna

    Peru · 3.6 km from Trujillo8.135° S 78.991° W

    

    The temple was built by the Moche, a culture that dominated the valleys of Peru's northern coast between about the first and ninth centuries AD. Together with the far larger Huaca del Sol across the plain, it formed the core of the Moche capital known today as Cerro Blanco.

    Did you know? Sacrifices linked to El Niño rains followed a different rite, with the throat cut and the body defleshed and put on display.

    More about Huaca de la Luna →

17. 17 Pedra Furada

    Brazil8.833° S 42.553° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    In the shelter's floor the excavators found hearths with charcoal and quartz and quartzite pieces they read as stone tools. Radiocarbon dating put the oldest layers at roughly 48,000 to 32,000 years ago, and later series of dates extended the sequence further back. If people were here then, the idea that the Americas were first settled around the time of the Clovis culture, some 13,000 years ago, could not stand.

    Did you know? Guidon went further than most critics could follow, suggesting the first Americans might have arrived by boat from Africa, perhaps 100,000 years ago.

    More about Pedra Furada →

18. 18 Pisac Archeological Park

    Písac

    Peru · 19 km from Cuzco13.409° S 71.843° W

    

    Pottery shows that the area was settled before the Incas, but the complex visible today is generally attributed to the emperor Pachacuti, who reigned from 1438 and is thought to have built it after about 1440.

    Did you know? Water for the ritual baths was brought by canal from a small lake at about 4,500 metres and carried across a gorge on a 20-metre-high aqueduct.

    More about Pisac Archeological Park →

19. 19 Atacama Giant

    Gigante de Atacama

    Chile · 39.6 km from Pozo Almonte19.949° S 69.633° W

    

    The figure was made by a mixed technique common in this part of the Andes: dark stones were cleared and heaped to form outlines, and the lighter ground beneath was exposed by scraping, so the image reads as a contrast of tones rather than a trench. It is generally dated to between about 1000 and 1400 AD and attributed to the peoples who lived in the region before the arrival of the Inca.

    Did you know? The giant shares the western slope with seven geometric figures of 100 to 200 square metres each, while a second panel on the southern slope holds thirteen more.

    More about Atacama Giant →

20. 20 Ingá Stone

    Pedra do Ingá

    Brazil · 34.2 km from Campina Grande7.325° S 35.585° W

    

    Most of the carvings on the vertical panel sit below a gently wavy horizontal line made of more than a hundred small cup-shaped hollows. Around and below it are spirals, concentric forms, rows of marks and shapes that people have read as animals, plants, human figures and stars; no one has deciphered them, and who made them and when remains uncertain. The outcrop has other panels too.

    Did you know? Some researchers think the crude marginal scratchings were made by an earlier culture, while others see them as practice sketches for the main panels.

    More about Ingá Stone →

21. 21 Ciudad Perdida

    Colombia · 35.6 km from Ciénaga11.038° N 73.925° W

    

    The way in sets the tone. The final approach is a climb of about 1,200 moss-covered stone steps through dense forest, and only at the top does the main sequence of terraces open up, with the mountains rising all around. The Tairona abandoned the town in the sixteenth century, in the upheaval that followed the Spanish conquest, and the forest closed over it.

    Did you know? In the archaeological register of the Sierra Nevada it is catalogued as Buritaca-200.

    More about Ciudad Perdida →

22. 22 Choquequirao

    Peru · 27.2 km from Abancay13.395° S 72.872° W

    

    The ruins are spread over a huge area, around 1,800 hectares, and only part has been cleared from the forest – estimates put the excavated share at a third or so. What has been uncovered includes ceremonial plazas, halls and houses, canals and fountains that brought water from a stream some four kilometres away, and a usnu, a ceremonial platform built on a levelled hilltop.

    Did you know? Local quarries yielded only metamorphic rock unsuited to fine Inca masonry, so walls were plastered with clay and painted a light orange.

    More about Choquequirao →

23. 23 Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná

    Paraguay · 7.2 km from Hohenau27.132° S 55.702° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The mission was founded in 1706 by Guaraní families who came from the older mission of San Carlos, today in Argentina. The Jesuit architect Juan Bautista Prímoli designed the main church and the plan of the whole settlement, which was conceived as a self-sufficient town.

    Did you know? Carved stone rosettes decorate the lintels, and sculpted fragments show flowers and fruits of the region's own vegetation.

    More about Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná →

24. 24 Sarcophagi of Karajía

    Sarcófagos de Karajía

    Peru · 18.3 km from Chachapoyas6.162° S 78.021° W

    

    The figures are a type the Chachapoya made for their honoured dead, known as purunmachus. Each is a hollow shell built of clay mixed with sticks and stones around a seated, wrapped mummy; only the head and upper chest are solid. They were coated in white and painted in yellow ochre and two shades of red with details of clothing, ornaments and the body, and several of them carry real human skulls set on top of their heads.

    Did you know? Once the fallen figure opened holes in its neighbours, rodents and birds of prey got in and disturbed one of the burials.

    More about Sarcophagi of Karajía →

25. 25 Tierradentro

    Parque Arqueológico Nacional de Tierradentro

    Colombia2.583° N 76.033° W

    • UNESCO World Heritage

    

    The tombs cluster on ridges and flattened hilltops around the village of San Andrés de Pisimbalá in the municipality of Inzá, Cauca, while the people who built them lived on the river terraces below. The park's principal groups are at Alto de Segovia, Alto del Duende, Alto de San Andrés, Alto del Aguacate and El Tablón, the last known for its stone figures.

    Did you know? Charcoal from a burial at Santa Rosa has been dated to about AD 1630, and the Tierradentro culture is thought to have continued into the 17th century.

    More about Tierradentro →

26. 26 Revash

    Mausoleos de Revash

    Peru · 34.4 km from Chachapoyas6.541° S 77.856° W

    

    The mausoleums were built of stones set in mud mortar on rectangular plans, some with one storey and some with two, each sharing walls with its neighbours and backing directly onto the rock. They have no front doors, only side openings, and windows shaped like a T, a cross or a square.

    Did you know? Revash represents just one of several Chachapoya ways of burying the dead, used here for communal tombs rather than individual graves.

    More about Revash →

27. 27 Parque archeologico national Ollantaytambo

    Ollantaytambo

    Peru · 17.1 km from Urubamba13.256° S 72.266° W

    

    The site was occupied long before the Incas, but around the middle of the fifteenth century the emperor Pachacuti conquered the existing town, razed it and rebuilt it as the centre of his personal estate. He had the Urubamba valley terraced and irrigated; the terraces here were built to an unusually high standard, with tall walls of cut stone, and were worked by the emperor's retainers while the town housed members of the Inca nobility.

    Did you know? The Spanish retreat turned into a rout, and Francisco Pizarro's cousin Pedro Pizarro was nearly killed when his horse died under him.

    More about Parque archeologico national Ollantaytambo →