Pastoralism and the Non-Pastoral World in the Late Pre-Columbian History of the Southern Andes (1000-1535)

Abstract

Abstract Based on archaeological data, we discuss the various ways in which herding and herders articulated with other activities and actors in the South Andes during the last few centuries before the Spanish conquest of America. This relationship took different forms, including pastoral specialization and inter-ethnic trade, political/ethnic integration and redistribution, and economic diversification at a household level. This variability cannot be entirely accounted by environmental diversity, but was also a consequence of changing historical conditions, such as those related to endemic warfare during the fourteenth century or the integration of the area into the Inka state. In each of these scenarios, pastoralists found different ways of integrating with the non-pastoral world, both in practice and representation.