| Summary: | <i>Kañawa</i>/<i>Cañihua</i> (<i>Chenopodium pallidicaule</i> Aellen) is the lesser-known cousin of the domesticated Andean pseudocereal quinoa (<i>Chenopodium quinoa</i> Willd.). In 1970, Daniel Gade hypothesized that Andean farmers may have domesticated volunteer wild <i>kañawa</i> plants that occupied quinoa or potato fields after observing that they could survive harsh climatic events such as drought or frost. To revisit this question of <i>kañawa</i> domestication, this paper provides an overview of the current botanical, genetic, and archaeological knowledge of <i>kañawa</i> domestication. It then provides patterns in the presence of wild and domesticated <i>kañawa</i> seeds from archaeological sites in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia, spanning the Formative and Tiwanaku periods from approximately 1500 BCE to 1100 CE. This archaeobotanical evidence supports Gade’s hypothesis that <i>kañawa</i> was a later domesticate, not appearing until after 250 CE. Regional paleoclimatic evidence of frequent climatic fluctuations lends support to the argument that <i>kañawa</i> contributed to a diversified food supply, which could provide a buffer against climate risks.
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