Delicious guinea pigs: Seasonality studies and the use of fat in the pre-Columbian Andean diet

In the Nearctic ecozone (temperate, subarctic, and arctic environments) hunter–gatherers often have to rely on diets with inadequate caloric intakes during certain times of the year. Although the Neotropic ecozone has different and less extreme conditions, it can also be nutritionally challenging. While the tropical forests offer a more stable diet (in terms of carbohydrates, proteins, and fat availability), high altitude biomes, such as the central Andes, can challenge human populations to metabolize proteins properly in certain times of the year. Guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) may have been incorporated in the Andean diet because they represented an additional source of fat, especially when carbohydrates were short in supply.