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CERRO SANTA BARBARA
The least preserved storerooms are on the northeast facing slope of Cerro Santa Barbara,4 a rounded knoll located on the southern outskirts of Huamachuco. Four factors contribute to poor preservation: The buildings may have suffered damage when the hill served as a Peruvian position during the Battle of Huamachuco (1883) in the War of the Pacific; the hilltop is under cultivation today, and the slopes also appear to have been cultivated in the past; the slopes are quite steep and subject to slippage; and, as we will discuss below, the construction techniques of these buildings facilitated their collapse.
The qollqa are arranged on four or five terraces, which tend to follow the hill contours. The uppermost row is at the brow of the hill (3,350 m) and is the best preserved. Starting at the extreme southwest, there are either 5 or 6 storerooms, then a shallow ravine, and another 21 rooms. On the next lower terrace there are about 18 qollqa. The third terrace has at least 12 qollqa, but these are much more poorly preserved. On the fourth terrace, we could only define parts of 6 qollqa, but their spacing suggests that there were other qollqa that are now completely destroyed. Finally, a fragmentary terrace wall may indicate the former presence of a fifth row of buildings.
Although we can only count about 62 qollqa on Cerro Santa Barbara, we think that there may have been as many as 125. The structures measure about 5 x 4 m, with the longer axis always oriented along the contour; they are usually spaced about 3 m apart along the terrace.
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