Download or read book Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric written by Penny Dransart and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a richly detailed examination of the practices of spinning yarn from the fleece of llamas and alpacas, Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric explores the relationship that herders of the present and of the past have maintained with their herd animals in the Andes. Dransart juxtaposes an ethnography of an Aymara herding community, based on more than ten years fieldwork in Isluga in the Chilean highlands, with archaeological material from excavations in the Atacama desert. Impeccably researched, this book is the first systematic study to set the material culture of pastoral communities against an understanding of the long-term effects of herding practices.