This undergraduate thesis explores a linkage of questions about human perceptions of plants and animals, man's actions in connection with other living beings and his impact on their occurrence and abundance in the territory of the (former) Inca Empire that today is a part of the Republic of Peru. The research is limited to the whole of the 16th century when the said region faced profound social and other changes. The author treats selected questions on the basis of literature and several sources, mostly the works by Pedro Cieza de León, José de Acosta and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. The thesis is divided into two main parts; the author researches his questions about the period of the late Inca Empire in the first and about the era beginning with the Spanish arrival to the northern Peru in 1532 in the second. The author finds out that the Spanish and indigenous treatment of other living beings was the result of interrelated economic, political, religious and other aims and needs, and of diverse perceptions of biota, developed in relation with different species, cultures and mental traditions. The arrival of the Spanish, successeful introduction of some Old World organisms and changes in indigenous societies had, besides natural procesess and conditions, a significant influence on populations of autochthonous species.
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