In this book leading experts uncover and discuss archaeological topics and themes surrounding the long-term trajectory of camelid (llama and alpaca) pastoralism in the Andean highlands of South America. The chapters open up these studies to a wider world by exploring the themes of intensification of herding over time, animal-human relationships, and social transformations, as well as navigating four areas of recent research: the origins of domesticated camelids, variation in the development of pastoralist traditions, ritual and animal sacrifice, and social interaction through caravans. Andeanists and pastoral scholars alike will find this comprehensive work an invaluable contribution to their library and studies.

Through a richly detailed examination of the practices of spinning yarn from the fleece of llamas and alpacas, Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric explores the relationship that herders of the present and of the past have maintained with their herd animals in the Andes. Dransart juxtaposes an ethnography of an Aymara herding community, based on more than ten years fieldwork in Isluga in the Chilean highlands, with archaeological material from excavations in the Atacama desert. Impeccably researched, this book is the first systematic study to set the material culture of pastoral communities against an understanding of the long-term effects of herding practices.

"Associations and distributions of features, artifacts, faunal remains, and structures at sites with different functions among modern camel herders assist in identifying similar behavior in prehistoric sites"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.

The domestication of South American camelids (llamas and alpacas) transformed the use of the Andean landscape. In the central altiplano of Bolivia, during the Formative Period (1500 BC - AD 500) a cultural complex known as Wankarani developed. This book discusses the development of early camelid pastoralism by testing a set of hypotheses related to Wankarani economic organization. In contrast with previous ideas that suggested the emergence of sedentary agricultural villages in this region, settlement patterns, site layouts and faunal remains analyses support the interpretation that the development and persistence of mobile pastoralist communities occurred in the Bolivian central altiplano.

There have been edited books on the archaeology of nomadism in various regions, and there have been individual archaeological and anthropological monographs, but nothing with the kind of coverage provided in this volume. Its strength and importance lies in the fact that it brings together a worldwide collection of studies of the archaeology of mobility. This book provides a ready-made reference to this worldwide phenomenon and is unique in that it tries to redefine pastoralism within a larger context by the term mobility. It presents many new ideas and thoughtful approaches, especially in the Central Asian region.

"Exploring the multiple social, ecological, cultural, and ontological dimensions of food in the Andean past, this book offers a diverse set of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that reveal the richness, sophistication, and ingenuity of Andean peoples. With 44 contributors from 10 countries, the studies presented in this volume employ new analytical methods, integrating different food data and interdisciplinary research to show how food impacts socio-political relationships and ontologies that are otherwise invisible in the archaeological record"--