<p>This study focuses on the social archaeology of port communities in the southern Viceroyalty of Peru during the early modern period (seventeenth century). These ports were inhabited by communities that appear only marginally in documentary records. The archaeological investigation of one such community—the fishing port of Loa in northern Chile—enabled the reconstruction of previously unexplored dimensions of daily life, social practices, lived experiences, and identity formation. The findings reveal a range of port-related activities, including the unloading of goods, fishing practices, and fish-salting operations, alongside evidence of consumption, diet, leisure, ostentation, dress, lifestyle, and ethnic diversity within a socially stratified community shaped by lordly authority and mercantile dynamics. The Loa case is then compared with other regional sites to model demographic patterns and labor arrangements through a synthesis of archaeological and archival sources. What emerges is a portrait of a rural, multiethnic, and predominantly Indigenous port society—geographically distant from the metropolitan centers that propelled early globalization, yet integral to the viceregal port system. As port archaeology in colonial Peru remains an emerging field, this article offers methodological reflections and explores its broader potential through a concrete case.</p>