Antofalla is a large and very remote stratovolcano

Stratovolcano

A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a tall, conical volcano built up by many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile and periodic, explosive eruptions...

 in Catamarca Province

Catamarca Province

Catamarca is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province has a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km². Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighbouring provinces are : Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba, and La Rioja...

 in northwestern Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. It is located on the edge of the Puna de Atacama

Puna de Atacama

The Puna de Atacama or Atacama Plateau is an arid high plateau averaging about above sea level and spanning an area of , in the Andes of northern Chile and Argentina and southwest Bolivia. Before the War of the Pacific , the region belonged to Bolivia. In 1898 it was ceded to Argentina in...

, a high desert plateau east of the Atacama Desert

Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert is a plateau in South America, covering a strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world...

. It lies just west of the Salar de Antofalla, a large playa

Sink (geography)

A geographic sink is a depression within an endorheic basin where water collects with no visible outlet. Instead of discharging, the collected water is lost due to evaporation and/or penetration...

 over 140 km (87 mi) in length. Inca ruins

Ruins

Ruins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...

 can be found at the volcano's summit, offering definitive proof of numerous Pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

ascents.