HERDERS AND LLAMAS, COMPANION SPECIES IN THE SOUTHERN ANDES DURING THE LAST THREE MILLENNIA

AXEL E. NIELSEN

Nature/s in construction: ethnobiology in the confluence of actors, territories and disciplines

Springer

Año: 2023;

The emergence of Andean pastoralism in the southern Andes involved the consolidation of a companion species relationship (Haraway 2003) between humans and llamas which has lasted for more than three millennia. This paper explores the symbolic and affective aspects of this relationship through the consideration of ethnographic, historic, and archaeological data from northwestern Argentina, southern Bolivia, and northern Chile. It is argued that domestic camelids were understood as persons and treated as full members of households and communities who, therefore, shared the personal and political fate of their human companions. The study of the semiotic dimension of “herding assemblages” is not only feasible for archaeology, but relevant for understanding processes at different scales.