Maca (Lepidium meyenii)

The Importance of Peruvian Maca root

in the History of Peru

Peruvian Maca Root cultivation goes back perhaps five millennia. It was an integral part of the diet and commerce of residents of the high Andes region. The Incas found maca root so potent that they restricted its use to their Royalty’s court. Upon overrunning the Inca people, conquering Spaniards became aware of this plant’s value and collected tribute in peruvian maca for export to Spain.
Maca root was used as an energy enhancer and as food by the Spanish Royalty as well. Eventually knowledge of maca’s special qualities died out, being preserved only in a few remote Peruvian communities.
In the 1960s and later in the 1980s, Peruvian (Gloria Chacon) German and North American scientists researching botanicals in Peru, rekindled interest in Peruvian Maca through nutritional analysis of what was designated as ‘the lost crops of the Andes.’ The publication of a book by that name introduced maca root to the world.
Peruvian maca was one of the first plants to be domesticated by the Andean people. Maca cultivation continued during the colonial times until the sixteenth century, and its importance gradually varied throughout the years. It is known to have been used as nutrient and medicine for 2000 years.
Archeologist Ramiro Matos, who studies pre-Hispanic agriculture in the Junin puna region, claims that maca L. meyenii might have been domesticated in the superior medium formative period (700 BC) and that there is no evidence in the zone dating before such period. However, it is noteworthy that the agricultural activity in the high plateau of Junin is much older than the Peruvian maca domestication (Lepidium meyenii W.).
The archeological evidences demonstrate that the sedentarization process of human groups in the puna region of Junin took place in very early stages due to the characteristics of the environment, which were stable and with enough hydrobiological resources. This allowed the domestication of maca and its usage.
Agusto Weberbauer, in El mundo vegetal de los Andes peruanos (1945), claims that he found maca root in the puna region between Candarave and Carumas, in the department of Puno, at 4600 m a.s.l.
In its newspaper articles (1978), Javier Pulgar Vidal describes Peruvian maca as a crop having a very important function in the feeding of the region. Maca crop is currently found in Ondores, Huayre, Uco, Ninacaca, Matacancha, Auquimarca and Junmn, located in the Bombsn plateau; and in Jarpa and in the road from Huancayo to Yauyos as well.

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