Ancient South American Foodways

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Ancient South American Foodways

Domestication of plants and animals has long been indicated as a main causational factor for population increase and socio-political complexity. Evidence of domestication of plants in South America has been said of have initially occurred 8000 BC, evidence of squash in Ecuador (Pearsall 2008:107), and 500 years earlier lima beans and chili peppers are being exploited (Lynch 1983:125-6). However, it took several millennia for intensive manipulation of plants to become standard practice for subsistence. The Archaic transition occurred around 3000 BC was identifiable for its

“broadly based subsistence, experimental agriculture, seasonal nomadism giving way to sedentism, and technological proliferation” (Lynch 1983:91). By the end of the Paleo-Indian times the shift to agriculture and cultivation came to a head during Pre-ceramic 2500 BC quinoa, maize, gourd, squash, potato, beans and lucuma were now utilized for agricultural domestication—the Formative stage according the Lynch (1983:91) ca. 2000 BC had “intensive agriculture, full sedentism, class systems, corporate labor projects, and temple-based religions.”

Before and continuing through the advent of irrigation agriculture, South Americans diets and main source of protein was marine based. “Fishing is very nearly as old in the new world as the presence of humans—seafood not just agriculture underwrote the first formation of Andean Civilization” (Isbell, Sandweiss, Silver 2008:147). Small sea villages eventually provided a mutual trade system for larger complex towns—exchange of maritime resources for agricultural products. The advent of irrigation agriculture was vital in the formation of complex villages. The trajectory of irrigation in Sou...

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...ithin and without the temple precincts, Chavin possessed elements which were to became standard in later Andean cities” (Bruhns, 1994:131). Also, Chiripa located near the Southern end of Lake Titicaca (600-100 BC), because a model for later temple structures particularly the Kidder Temple at Pucara. The site consisted of rectangular buildings around a central patio and each site in the complex housed a sunken rectangular temple. Consistencies across Nazca settlement patterns indicate urban planning strategies and monitoring systems. The Incan culture derived from Tiwanaku. Incan empire expanded from its core, Cuzco in the Cuzco Valley. Incan’s ability to cultivate and harvest resulting in techniques for food storage that could last from 3-7 years. Inca’s took the crops of those conquered nations and cultivated them ensuring seasonality differentiation abundance.

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