The Alto Chicama region is located in the basin of the Upper Chicama River which has various local names such as Rio Grande, Coina, Perejil above the place where it is joined by Rio Chuquillanqui. Recently however, this section is referred to as Rio Alto Chicama and it is this name that is introduced on the maps published by Instituto Geografico-Militar in Lima.

In the present paper the Alto Chicama region will not signify the whole basin of the river but only the area covered by the archaeological investigations which were carried out in the uppermost part of the basin between the springs and the estuaries of Quebrada Huacamochal and Quebrada Cuyuchugo (Fig. 1).

The Alto Chicama basin is located in the uppermost part of the northern Peru's Andes at the Atlantic-Pacific watershed. This mountainous area shows considerable morphological variation. It's data range from 1800 m a.s.l. (Quebrada Cuyuchugo estuary) up to 4284 m above sea level (Cerro Callacuyan). As a result of the intense erosive activity of the Alto Chicama River a steep and deep V-shape valley was formed. The elevation variations between the valley bottom and the peaks amount even to 1000 m. The narrow valley bottom does not exceed 50 m in width and at some gorges it is only few meters wide. Numerous tributaries are well developed with valleys similar to the main one but with more vertical walled gorges.

Evident relationship between morphology and geological structure can be observed. The layers of hard quarzitic sandstones of several hundred meters thickness occur alternately with the complexes of soft clayey sandstones. Sporadic rocks of volcanic origin (andesite intrusions, tuffs, etc.) can also be found. Ridge lines reflecting geological structure form a visible ridge-and-valley grid. Almost all the ridges in the Alto Chicama region are composed of quarzitic sandstones because of their highest weathering resistance. Depressions in this area originate from denudation processes and they were formed within rocks of low resistance.