Animal Husbandry and Meat Consumption

Abstract

In this chapter, animal subsistence data are compared for elite and commoner patio groups in two succeeding time periods: Wanka II, the latter part of the Late Intermediate Period (LIP), and Wanka III, the Late Horizon. Bones recovered from the patios are assumed to be the remains of animals that were brought to domestic units for subsistence or ritual use, and for secondary production activities, such as weaving. The analysis of faunal remains helps us to investigate a very important aspect of economic change in Xauxa households. The inferences from the osteological evidence that apply to Xauxa animal husbandry presented here are based on ethnographic descriptions of traditional pastoralism in Peru.1 Probably the greatest share of herd management tasks, such as the culling, would have taken place on the puna, the natural environment for camelid pastoralism. No puna sites are represented in the sample data but the ultimate domestic use of the animals is reflected by the bones discarded in the analyzed household spaces. Individual household use, then, produced the faunal remains that have been sampled and analyzed for comparisons of status and time.