The flocks of the Wamani : a study of llama herders on the punas of Ayacucho, Peru /

Flannery conducted limited ethnoarchaeological visits to a group of five herding estancias in high Andean grasslands (13,750-14,750 feet) near Huamanguilla and Quinua, Ayacucho, during his collaboration with Richard MacNeish's Archaeological-Botanical Project between 1970 and 1972. Roughly two thirds of this volume is based on his ethnoarchaeological data, placed in historical context by Joyce Marcus. In the remaining third, Robert Reynolds used this restricted set of field data to develop four different simulation models of llama herd dynamics, with a particular emphasis on the parameters assumed necessary for long-term stability of subsistence size herds. Combining a mix of ethnoarchaeology and simulation modeling of llama herds, the work has no competitors. The empirical data on herd management, corral sizes, house construction, and the like will be of particular interest to Andeanists trying to develop broader synthetic models. The theoretical herd dynamics models, although based on an empirical data set limited to a very narrow region and a parochial subsistence pattern, will be of similar interest to a wide range of social scientists and biologists interested in evolution. Abundant photographs and figures, good index, marginal bibliography. Suitable for upper-division undergraduates and above. D. L. Browman Washington University