Llama Poop Helped Inca Thrive
Discovery News, May 23 2011. "[…] Human populations took off and developed into complex societies in the Andes by switching from hunter-gathering to agriculture centered on maize, according to the research published in the June issue of the journal Antiquity. Llama poop helped fertilize that crucial crop.

"This leap occurred 2,700 years ago and was made possible by a huge availability of animal excrement. Organic fertilizers enabled corn to be cultivated at very high altitudes, allowing the Inca to settle and flourish," Alex Chepstow-Lusty, a palaeoecologist from the French Institute for Andean Studies in Lima, Peru, told Discovery News."

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/llama-droppings-inca-andes-maize-110523.html


"Pollen and mites buried in mud layers of the Andes reveal how llama droppings helped the Inca fertilize vital maize crops."
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