Recent research challenges the traditional view of early human diets in the Andes, suggesting a shift from “hunter-gatherers” to “gatherer-hunters.” The study, analyzing remains from the Wilamaya Patjxa and Soro Mik’aya Patjxa sites in Peru, reveals an 80 percent plant-based and 20 percent meat diet among early Andeans. This finding, based on isotope chemistry and statistical modeling, contradicts previous beliefs and influences current perceptions of diets such as the Paleodiet.
“Conventional wisdom holds that early human economies focused on hunting — an idea that has led to a number of high-protein dietary fads such as the Paleodiet,” Haas says. “Our analysis shows that the diets were composed of 80 percent plant matter and 20 percent meat.”For these early humans of the Andes, spanning from 9,000 to 6,500 years ago, there is indeed evidence that hunting of large mammals provided some of their diets.
Joining Haas in the study were researchers from Penn State University, the University of California-Merced, the University of California-Davis, Binghamton University, the University of Arizona, and the National Register of Peruvian Archaeologists. “Food is incredibly important and crucial for survival, especially in high-altitude environments like the Andes,” Chen says. “A lot of archaeological frameworks on hunter-gatherers, or foragers, center on hunting and meat-heavy diets — but we are finding that early hunter-gatherers in the Andes were mostly eating plant foods like wild tubers.”