Camelid Domestication in the Lake Titicaca Basin: Integrating Evidence from the Archaic Period (10.0-3.2 ka)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Scaling New Heights: Recent Advances in Andean Zooarchaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Camelids, recognized as the sole large-bodied domesticate of the Americas, were central to Andean societies, playing a crucial role in their economic, symbolic, and religious systems. The domestication of Andean camelids challenges conventional domestication models, which predominantly focus on Eurasian species. The distinct environmental and cultural context of the Andes necessitates a specialized approach to understanding this process. This study advances Andean zooarchaeology by examining camelid domestication in the high-altitude Lake Titicaca Basin, a region long posited as a key center for this development. The research focuses on the domestication of camelids during the critical Archaic Period transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentism. To understand the complex and prolonged process of domestication, this research integrates genetic, isotopic, archaeological, and environmental evidence to provide a comprehensive evaluation of camelid domestication.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Scaling New Heights: Recent Advances in Andean Zooarchaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51335