The Quilmes people were an indigenous tribe

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 of the Diaguita

Diaguita

The Diaguita, also called Diaguita-Calchaquí, are a group of South American indigenous peoples. The Diaguita culture developed between the 8th and 16th centuries in what are now the provinces of Salta, Catamarca, La Rioja and Tucumán in northwestern Argentina, and in the Atacama and Coquimbo...

 group settled in the western subandean

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 valleys of today’s Tucumán

Tucumán Province

Tucumán is the most densely populated, and the smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the capital is San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and...

 province, 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...

. They fiercely resisted the Inca invasions of the 15th century, and continued to resist the Spaniards

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 for 130 years, until being defeated in 1667. Spanish invaders relocated the last 2,000 survivors to a reservation ("reducción") 20 km south of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

. This 1,500 km journey was made by foot, causing hundreds of Quilmes to die in the process. By 1810, the reservation was abandoned as a result of its having become a ghost town. The survivors ultimately settled in what is now the city of Quilmes.

The Quilmes Indians were one of the fiercest cultures which resisted the Incas but eventually fell to the Spaniards. Today, there are only a few Quilmes left in Tucumán Province.

Quilmes ruins

On the way to Cafayate

Cafayate

-External links: *...

, 182 km from San Miguel de Tucumán, the Ruins of Quilmes

Ruins of Quilmes

The Ruins of Quilmes is an archaeological site in the Calchaquí Valleys, Tucumán Province, Argentina. They are the remains of what was the largest pre-Columbian settlement in the country, occupying about thirty hectares...

 may be seen; this is a fortified citadel which was raised by the Quilmes Indians. One of the most important archaeological locations in Argentina, the ruins were discovered by ethnographer and historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 Samuel Lafone Quevedo in 1888 and restored in 1978.
As of 2007, this archaeological site is in private hands, and has a private hotel on its territory.

Population

Population at the beginning of the second half of the 17th century, is estimated in about 2,000 families, approximately 10,000 persons.