Where Do Alpacas Come From? Andean Origins and Vicuñas

The alpaca’s wild ancestor: the vicuña

The alpaca has no wild form of its own. Its ancestor is the vicuña (Vicugna vicugna), a graceful tawny animal that lives in family groups at about 3,200–4,800 m (10,500–15,700 ft) in the central Andes of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, with a small introduced population in Ecuador. Vicuñas stand about 75–85 cm (30–34 in) at the shoulder and weigh 35–65 kg (77–143 lb), a little smaller and lighter than most alpacas.

The vicuña’s fleece is extraordinarily fine, which explains why people valued the animal so highly. Over thousands of years of breeding, herders produced the alpaca: a calmer, slightly larger animal with a much longer and heavier fleece that keeps growing, so it can be shorn regularly.

When and where were alpacas domesticated?

Archaeologists have traced alpaca domestication to the puna, the high grasslands of the central Peruvian Andes. Excavations at sites such as the Telarmachay rock shelter in the Junín highlands show a shift from hunting wild vicuñas and guanacos to keeping herds about 6,000–7,000 years ago. Signs of this change include the appearance of alpaca-like front teeth, which differ from those of vicuñas, and a sharp rise in the remains of newborn animals, typical of crowded herds kept in corrals.

Life on the puna explains why domestication happened there. At these altitudes crops grow poorly, but the tough grasses and boggy wetlands can support large numbers of grazing animals. Keeping herds close at hand gave people a reliable supply of fiber, meat and fuel in one of the harshest farming environments on Earth, without the uncertainty of hunting.

The llama was domesticated from the guanaco at around the same broad period. Herding of both species then spread through the Andes, from Ecuador to northern Chile and Argentina, and camelids became the main livestock of Andean societies.

What DNA revealed

For most of the 20th century, many scientists believed both domestic camelids came from the guanaco. The question was hard to settle because all four South American camelids can interbreed and produce fertile young.

In 2001, Miranda Kadwell and colleagues published a genetic study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Using both mitochondrial DNA and nuclear markers, they showed that the alpaca descends from the vicuña and the llama from the guanaco. They also found extensive mixing between alpacas and llamas, so many modern alpacas carry some llama ancestry. Following this work, the alpaca’s scientific name was changed from Lama pacos to Vicugna pacos. Some recent references put all four species back in a single genus, Lama, so both names are still in use.

Alpacas in Andean civilizations

Alpacas and llamas supported Andean cultures for thousands of years. Alpacas gave fiber for clothing, meat, hides and dung for fuel and fertilizer, while llamas carried goods. Alpaca images appear in the art of early Peruvian cultures such as the Moche, and well-preserved mummified alpacas about 1,000 years old, found in the Moquegua valley of southern Peru, had remarkably fine, uniform fleece.

The Inca Empire, which controlled much of the Andes in the 15th and early 16th centuries, managed enormous state herds and kept records of animals using knotted cords called khipu. Fine cloth woven from alpaca and vicuña fiber was a mark of wealth and status, and vicuña garments were reserved for royalty. Camelids were also offered in religious ceremonies.

How the Spanish conquest changed alpaca herds

The Spanish conquest, which began in 1532, was a disaster for Andean herds. War, the collapse of the Inca state system, introduced diseases and competition from European sheep, cattle and horses caused camelid numbers to crash. Many surviving alpacas were pushed out of lower, more fertile valleys into the highest pastures, where they are still mostly kept today.

Researchers studying ancient fleece believe that the careful breeding of the Inca period was partly lost after the conquest, and that much modern alpaca fiber is coarser than the best pre-Columbian fleeces, partly because of crossing with llamas.

How alpacas spread around the world

Alpacas stayed almost entirely in South America until the late 20th century. Exports began in the 1980s: the first commercial imports to the United States arrived in 1984, and herds were soon established in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and continental Europe. By the late 2000s, there were more than 100,000 alpacas in the United States and Canada.

Despite this spread, South America still holds the great majority of alpacas, and Peru alone has most of them. Today alpacas live on farms from Scotland to California, but their thick fleece, soft hum and calm herd life still reflect their origins in the cold high Andes. For more on how the two domestic camelids differ, see alpaca vs llama.