A new analysis of diet data is challenging our historical understanding of why the Andes civilisations transitioned from foraging food to farming roughly 5,000 years ago.
In around 3000 BCE, ancient indigenous civilizations in the Andes Mountain range in South America began to transition away from hunter-gatherer foraging and toward farming.
The prevailing model suggests that economic hardships and insecurity were the driving forces behind the origin of agriculture.
Where before, humans would rely on foraging and gathering wild foods, it’s believed that the depletion of animal resources and an ever-growing human population forced the population to develop a strong, dependent agricultural farming economy.
However, after conducting studies at the archaeological sites Jiskairumoko and Kaillachuro in Peru, a team of researchers proposes this model might not explain the full story.
The research team measured the carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of 16 individuals who were buried in the Lake Titicaca Basin, boarding Peru and Bolivia. These individuals inhabited the region roughly 5,000 to 3,000 years ago.
The isotope signatures indicated that 84% of their diet was plant material, with a small proportion of the diet being made from large mammal meat.
Given the prevailing theory of economic hardship, it was expected that this diet makeup would be dramatically different to earlier and later civilisations.
Instead, the researchers found the diet was similar to both the earlier foraging and later farming civilizations, suggesting there were consistent food resources available during this transition period contradicting the theory of economic insecurity.
“This article challenges the traditional idea that the transition to agriculture occurred out of necessity or periods of crisis,” says the author of the study, Luisa Hinostroza from the Department of Ethnobotany and Economic Botany of the Museum of Natural History in Lima, Peru.
“Our findings demonstrate, instead, that in the Altiplano, it was a process marked by stability and food sufficiency sustained for thousands of years.”
These findings also tell us more about how the ancient Andean people lived.
“Our research shows that the origin of agriculture in the Titicaca Basin was a resilient process,” says Luis Flores-Blanco from the University of California Davis and Arizona State University.
“Ancient Andean peoples relied on their deep knowledge of harvesting wild plants like potatoes and quinoa, as well as hunting camelids.”
“With this understanding of their environment, they effectively managed their resources — domesticating both plants and animals — and gradually incorporated these domesticated species into their diet.”
The authors also suggest that the economic strengthening of the region may have been supported by the development of new technologies like archery and ceramics and an expanding trade network.
“These results constitute crucial evidence revealing the capacity of Andean societies to efficiently manage their resources, such as tubers and grains, and maintain long-term stability,” says Hinostroza.
The findings are available to read in PLOS One.
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