Ten thousand years ago, populations of the American continent domesticated plants that would change the entire world. Potatoes, quinoa, manioc, chili peppers, cacao, peanuts: these species, born from millennia of selection in South America, today feed billions of human beings and form the foundation of cuisines worldwide. This Andean agricultural revolution is one of the great transformations in human history -- comparable to the domestication of wheat in the Near EastNear EastA region of western Asia (Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Iran), cradle of the Neolithic revolution, agriculture, the first cities and writing.→ or rice in Asia.

Potato flowers (Solanum tuberosum)
Flowers of the potato (Solanum tuberosum). This plant was domesticated approximately 7,000 to 10,000 years ago on the Andean highlands, near Lake Titicaca (Peru-Bolivia), from wild species of the genus Solanum. Today, the potato is the world's fourth most important food crop.

The Lake Titicaca region, at 3,800 meters altitude, is the heartland of Andean domestication par excellence. It is here that the first sedentary farming communities selected, over generations, the least toxic and most productive wild potato varieties (Solanum spp.). Even today, the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes harbor more than 3,000 varieties of potatoes, testifying to the richness of this genetic heritage.[1]

Quinoa and Andean Grains

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) was domesticated in the Andes approximately 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, probably from wild species of the genus Chenopodium that still grow in Andean wastelands. Its exceptional protein richness -- it contains all eight essential amino acids -- made it an ideal dietary staple for populations living at high altitude, where animal protein sources are limited. The Inca civilization had made it one of its sacred foods.

Quinoa grains, Chenopodium quinoa
Quinoa grains (Chenopodium quinoa). Native to the Andean highlands, quinoa has been cultivated for millennia as a dietary staple. Its complete protein content (18-22%) makes it a nutritionally superior pseudo-cereal to wheat or corn for certain uses.

Other Andean plants played a fundamental role: maca (Lepidium meyenii), a root plant from the high Andes; kiwicha (Andean amaranth); oca and ulluco -- tubers forgotten outside the American continent but essential to the diet of high-altitude populations for millennia.

Manioc: The Tropical Revolution

In Amazonia, another plant transformed the subsistence of tropical populations: manioc (Manihot esculenta). Domesticated approximately 8,000 to 10,000 years ago in the Orinoco basin (Venezuela-Colombia), it spread across all the tropical lowlands of South America. Its resistance to poor soils and variable humidity conditions makes it an ideal crop for tropical agricultureAgricultureThe cultivation of plants and production of food by working the soil, which emerged in the Neolithic in the Near East and independently elsewhere; it radically transformed human societies.→ -- and its adoption by Europeans after 1492 transformed African and Asian agriculture.

Manioc leaves (Manihot esculenta)
Leaves of manioc (Manihot esculenta), a tropical plant domesticated in Amazonia more than 8,000 years ago. Today the world's fourth most important food crop, manioc feeds more than 800 million people in AfricaAfricaThe cradle of humankind: the continent where the first hominins appeared, then Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago, before the expansion to the rest of the world.→, Asia, and Latin America. Its starchy tubers are consumed boiled, fermented, or dried.

To these plants are added Andean domestic animals: the llama (Lama glama) and alpaca (Vicugna pacos), domesticated 5,000 to 6,000 years ago from wild vicunas on the highlands. These animals provided wool, meat, transport power, and fertilizer -- resources that, combined with Andean crops, enabled the development of the first complex civilizations in South America. The Andean agricultural revolution was not an import but an independent invention -- and one of the most fertile in human history.