The latest addition to the About.com Guide to Animal Domestication project is the guinea pig, those ubiquitous grade school class pets. Guinea pigs have an interesting domestication story, in part because to people of the Andes Mountains they were (and are) considered a reliable food source.
Guinea Pigs (Cavia porcellus) in Hutches in Peru. Photo by Chang'r
Ethnographic and archaeological evidence suggests that a typical Andean household would keep around 20 of the little fuzzballs around the house, stashed in little cubby holes like the ones illustrated here. House entrances would have a high sill so they couldn't run off. Given a hearty reproduction cycle, 20 guinea pigs would garner something like 12 pounds of meat a month. Not bad for a grade school pet.
After I was done with my page, I discovered that archaeologist Mike Forstadt has a pretty darn good page on the history of the guinea pig, focusing on the ethnography. Thanks, Mike!
- Read more about the Domestication History of Guinea Pigs
- Guide to Animal Domestication
- History of the Guinea Pig in South America, web page from archaeologist Mike Forstadt
Comments
Hi K
Nice wrap up on guinea pigs. They seem to be an under-appreciated element in the Andean diet, especially for the protein and fats they add to the diet. I ate one in Cuzco some years ago and found too greasy for my perhaps-overly-refined tastes but I have a lot of protein alternatives not available to the average Andean farm family. Good job!
Dick