As in other part of the planet, adapting to environmental changes after the last ice-age led to the emergence of agriculture and the fast spread-ing of sedentary life. However, Andean civilizations followed a wholly different technological path than the Mediterranean, South East Asian or Central American civilizations. Among the most glaring differences stand the absence of drought animals, and a limited number of domesticable species that could provide large amounts of animal protein. Only two ancestors of the South American camelids, the guanaco and the vicuña –wild predecessors to the llama and the alpaca, respectively- were available. The guanaco, an almost extinguished species in Peru, was particularly suited to living on the Coast, while the vicuna, source of the finest fleece in the world, lived in remote places at high elevations.
South American ruminants were the source of wool for clothes, meat for food, hide and bones for making instruments and tools, manure to generate heat and energy, and the beasts of bur-den and transportation for long haul travel. Only after they were domesticated, it was possible for men in the Andes to exploit regions above 4.200 masl where farming is impossible. Andean men required high mobility to gain access to a wide range of ecological niches and complementary economic resources. Although it is a proven fact that domesticated llamas could live on the Coast and ritual hunting of deer and guanaco took place on the forested slopes along the coastline, exploiting sea resources was essential to provide a balanced diet to the people of western Andean slopes and to produce sufficient dry meat surplus for later consumption. Probably, shellfish harvesting and fishing supplemented by gathering and incipient horticulture, sufficed to lay the foundations of small sedentary communities already towards the fourth millennium BC. Herding societies in the Highlands, who depended basically on camel id herding for their daily subsistence, emerged parallel to and independently from the Coast’s sedentary or semi-sedentary settlements.
Another basic peculiarity of Central Andean cultural evolution is the wide variety of domesticated plant species in at least three different geographical areas: The High Jungle, straddling the eastern and western Andean basins; the High Andean area, and the coastal desert. Some of these species have gained world recognition recently, such as mashua presumably aphrodisiac-, or maca, an equivalent of world-famous Korean ginseng. Others have been a staple in makings diet for several centuries, including hundreds of potato varieties and four of the world’s ten cereals: corn (developed independently from Mexico), cañihua, kiwicha and quenoa. Hot chili peppers –known as aji- were included in the diet of Andean people since 8.000 BC, and from about 2.700 to 1.500 BC the menu already included tubers and roots like manioc, mashua, potato, sweet potato, olluco, oca and achira; legumes and pulses including tarwi, broad beans and beans, roots like yacon and jiquima; fruits including avocados, chirimoya (custard apples), lucuma and guava, peanuts and pumpkins, and plants of in-dustrial use like gourds and cotton. An outstanding aspect of Andean agrarian civilization is that the whole of its production relied on human la-bor. Only a few rudimentary tools were available. At a later stage, the chakitaclla or wood plough was improve by adding stone or metal points. Maces to break earth clumps were the most commonly used tools until the time of the Spanish conquest. On the other hand, cropping techniques foretold the environmental viewpoints adopted in the western world only towards the end of the twentieth century. The most common farming system was similar to small-parcel horticulture that allowed the best use of soils, water resources and natural fertilizers. Considering this back-ground, it is not surprising that individual survival hinged on coordinated work among all community members. In Peru’s vast territory, the need to count on large numbers of hands and minds moved by a grand common goal fostered a sound sense of community belonging that is still today a salient feature of Andean culture.
