Growing in Scarcity: Pre-Hispanic Rain-Fed Agriculture in the Semi-Arid and Frost-Prone Andean Altiplano (Bolivia)

Pablo Cruz (), Richard Joffre (), Thibault Saintenoy and Jean-Joinville Vacher
Additional contact information
Pablo Cruz: UE CISOR CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Jujuy, San Salvador de Jujuy 4600, Argentina
Richard Joffre: CEFE, University of Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, 34090 Montpellier, France
Thibault Saintenoy: Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio (Incipit), CSIC, 15707 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Jean-Joinville Vacher: Institute of Research for Development, UMR 208 Paloc, 13572 Paris, France

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-22

Abstract: Ancient Andean agricultural landscapes have been the subject of a large number of archaeological and agro-ecological studies, which generally refer to regions with favourable environmental conditions or, in the case of arid and semi-arid environments, those with irrigation facilities. The aim of this article is to present and analyse the pre-Hispanic rain-fed farming systems widely represented in two adjacent regions of Bolivia’s arid and cold southern Altiplano. The search for archaeological agricultural areas combined aerial analysis and field surveys. Agro-ecological characterisation was based on historical and ethnographic studies of the region’s present-day populations. Despite their geographical proximity, similar environmental conditions, and same agropastoral way of life, the typology of cultivated areas developed in the southern altiplano differs significantly. Within this same framework of adaptation and resilience, the sectorisation of agricultural systems observed in these two regions reveals a regional productive specialisation that favoured internal exchanges and exchanges with other regions. These differences are related to two models of non-centralised, low-inequality societies—one strongly based on cohesion and the other characterised by greater fragmentation and social conflict—underlining the limits of strict environmental determinism in shaping agricultural landscapes. These results provide new food for thought in the debate on the use and value of rain-fed agricultural practices and more broadly on the diversity of adaptations by human societies in extreme and unstable environmental contexts.

Keywords: Andes; landscape mapping; pre-hispanic agriculture; rain-fed cultivation; traditional ecological knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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