Foodways of the Ancient Andes: Transforming Diet, Cuisine, and Society

This collection of fifteen articles explores the current state of scholarship about how food was raised and consumed in the Andean mountains prior to contact with Europeans.

More than forty scholars have contributed to the work, which is organized into four broad areas of study:

• The Impact of Place and Long Distance Interactions on Foodways
• Food, Power, and Status in Early States and Empires
• Food During Times of Trouble: Conflict, Instability, and Collapse
• Building the Inka Empire with Sacred and High-Status Foods

The contributors are primarily anthropologists with a wide range of subspecializations, but there are other authorities as well, including several biogeochemists and archaeologists, and professors of aquatic and isotope ecology, anatomy, and political science.

Articles do things as varied as trace evidence of trade between various groups gained through the examination of pottery fragments, explore childhood diets, and delineate the range of camelids (llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas) before the introduction of European animal diseases.

Extensive bibliographies for each article provide a rich trove for further study.

Hardcover. Maps, drawings, black-and-white and color photographs.