Ancient DNA of Camelids from Far Southern Peru: Whole Genome Enrichment Methods Reveal Breeding History at Tiwanaku and Inca Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Prior to Spanish colonization, the indigenous peoples of Andean South America (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina) incorporated domesticated camelids (Camelidae), llamas (Lama glama), and alpacas (Vicugña pacos) into their economic and ritual life and were skillfully adept at breeding and rearing camelids for different utilitarian and ritual purposes. Recent studies of both modern and archaeological camelid genomics have examined questions of introgression (i.e., hybridization) and cross-breeding between domesticated and wild camelids through time using mitochondrial DNA. This presentation presents the first results of an ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis consisting of the reconstruction of full genomes using Whole Genome Enrichment (WGE) techniques to examine admixture and introgression, phylogenetic relationships, and gene flow in archaeological camelid remains. The samples consist of eight archaeological camelid remains from two prehispanic sites located in far southern Peru. The samples are from Tiwanaku sites located in the Moquegua Valley dating to ca. 600–1000 CE and from a coastal Inca site, Tambo Tacahuay, dating to ca. 1420–1530 CE. Our results provide new insights into ancient breeding practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35984.0