This paper combines archaeology and earth sciences within the public use sector of the Sierra de las Quijadas National Park. The native peoples occupied this territory lacking surface water for at least the last thousand years. Archaeology shows a differential use of the landscape. Numerous quarry-workshop sites exist in the mountainous sector and residential spaces in the eastern foothills. Geomorphology suggests that rainfall events are channeled into the ephemeral streams in the foothills. This contribution analyzes the type of spatial relationship between these geoforms and the sites, as well as its causes. It is proposed that the local groups select with high frequency the ephemeral riverbeds to locate their residential bases. Several materialities show this relationship, including historic dams and combustion features, understood as structures related to water harvesting. In multiple latitudes, humans could persistently occupy territories with arid and semi-arid climates through the recurrent use of these types of watercourses. This is a consequence of their ability to channel and retain waterfor longer than the surrounding landscape. The case study presented here is a new example, emerging from the edge of the South American Arid Diagonal, about the people of the deserts and how they structured, and still structure, their landscape from the development of water management strategies concerning the prevailing geomorphology.