Inside the Reducción: Crafting Colonial Foodways at Carrizales and Mocupe Viejo, Zaña Valley, Peru (1570–1700)

Abstract

This study explores the politics of indigenous foodways in early colonial Peru, examining the processes by which indigenous households adapted to demographic stress, resettlement, and evangelization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries CE. We examine faunal and botanical data from two planned towns (reducciones) located in Peru’s Zana Valley—Carrizales and Mocupe Viejo. Inter- and intra-site comparison of food procurement and diet reveal different strategies and timing in the ways that Eurasian products were incorporated into native foodways, suggesting that while Old World animal domesticates were rapidly integrated into the indigenous diet, plant domesticates tied to the Iberian palate were not as readily adopted.