Thousand-Year-Old Rock Art Likely Served as a Gathering Point for Llama Caravans Crossing the Andes

Hundreds of years before the Inca road system connected a sprawling empire, a more modest network of trails linked the small communities that lined the mountains and coastlines of South America. These trails, snaking through the Andes, supported a vibrant network of llama caravans, which may have been the driving force behind elements of cultural continuity that have been shared by different South American societies for the last millennium—and perhaps even longer.

“These caravanners were the lubricant for more than just trade goods,” says Nicholas Tripcevich, a research associate and lab manager at the University of California, Berkeley. “They served an important role linking people. They probably spread information, stories.”

Read more at Smithsonian Magazine.