ABSTRACT
The animals herded in Peru were llamas and alpacas, members of the family Camelidae, genus Lama. Llamas were the herd animals providing labour power, dung, wool, and meat. Alpacas were absent due to their requirements for good wool production. Both llama and alpaca herds are raised with a preference for the more valuable alpacas. There are major physiographic differences between highland northern and southern Peru. Pure pastoralism is found in the south on the high grasslands as an adaptive response to an environment largely unsuited for agriculture. In northern Peru in prehispanic times, it is believed that agropastoralism was the dominant high-altitude land-use strategy. Models to help understand high-altitude land use in northern Peru should not be derived from southern or central Peru where the possibility of pure pastoralism was much stronger, but rather from the eastern slopes where agropastoralism is the dominant subsistence adaptation.
