Newsflash: Civilization Was Built on Llama Dung

By Valerie Ross | May 24, 2011 8:48 am

Far before the looming pyramids and the learned librarians at Alexandria, Egyptian civilization sprung up from the fertile banks of the Nile. Long predating the Inca empire and the sprawling structures of Macchu Picchu, Andean civilization emerged from a whole bunch of llama poop.

For civilizations to take root, people need to have enough food on hand to put time and energy into activities like waging war, building stuff, and composing epic poetry. In the high and rugged Andes, growing that much maize—the staple crop of ancient South America—isn’t easy. That’s what llama droppings are for, a new study suggests.

Digging through some deeply buried and really old dirt from a spot in the Andes two miles above sea level, paleoecologist Alex Chepstow-Lusty found two things: pollen and bugs. In particular, he found maize pollen from 2700 years ago—and, from the same period, a population explosion of little crap-eating critters called oribatid mites, which are known to make a meal of that which llamas leave behind. The local people were suddenly able to cultivate maize with such success, Chepstow-Lusty surmised, because they had growing herds of llamas, and therefore an abundance of llama dung with which to fertilize their crops. (As he explained to the Guardian, llamas “defecate communally so it is easily gathered.” Thanks, guys.) Around that time, the archaeological record shows, a small Andean society that was a progenitor of the Incas began taking shape.

In other words: Lots of llamas pooped. People slathered that poop on the fields as manure. Pretty soon, they were forming small chiefdoms like nobody’s business.

From scat came civilization. Those who feel modern society is headed down the tubes, it seems, may have things backward.

Image: Flickr / EVIL EMRE

  • Malcolm James

    Communal llama dung piles (admittedly conical rather than truly pyramidal) also anticipate pyramids which, in one form or another, appear in nearly all formative societies. The llama dung pile as a design template for megalithic structures – who knew! Piles that clearly show the optimal angle of rise for stable construction. I appear to be growing incipient pyramids all over my front field.

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  • Schneb

    So, being civilized is all about getting your $hit together? Amaizing!


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