Inca-Caranqui
Coordinates: 0°19′19″N 78°07′18″W / 0.32194°N 78.12167°W The Inca-Caranqui archaeological site is located in the village of Caranqui on the southern outskirts of the city of Ibarra, Ecuador. The ruin is located in a fertile valley at an elevation of 2,299 metres (7,543 ft). The region around Caranqui, extending into the present day country of Colombia, was the northernmost outpost of the Inca Empire and the last to be added to the empire before the Spanish conquest of 1533. The archaeological region is also called the Pais Caranqui (Caranqui country).
Prior to the arrival of the Incas, the region north of Quito for 160 kilometres (99 mi) to near the Colombian border consisted of several small-scale chiefdoms including the Caranqui, Cayambe, Otavalo, and Cochasquí. The names of the first three are preserved in names of 21st century towns and cities and the last is the name given a prominent pre-Incan ruin. Caranqui is the collective name used to describe the chiefdoms, although Caranqui may not have been the most powerful of them. These chiefdoms appear to have been similar in language, artistic techniques, subsistence, and settlement patterns.
The Caranqui and other Andean people of northern Ecuador are often identified as the Cara people and Cara culture and as descendants of the semi-mythical Quitu culture, from whence comes the name of the Ecuadorian capital of Quito.
...
Wikipedia