[blam]

GGG Ping.

Science 26 September 2003:
Vol. 301. no. 5641, pp. 1893 - 1895
DOI: 10.1126/science.1087806

Intensive Pre-Incan Metallurgy Recorded by Lake Sediments from the Bolivian Andes

Mark B. Abbott1* and Alexander P. Wolfe2

The history of pre-Columbian metallurgy in South America is incomplete because looting of metal artifacts has been pervasive. Here, we reconstruct a millennium of metallurgical activity in southern Bolivia using the stratigraphy of metals associated with smelting (Pb, Sb, Bi, Ag, Sn) from lake sediments deposited near the major silver deposit of Cerro Rico de Potosí. Pronounced metal enrichment events coincide with the terminal stages of Tiwanaku culture (1000 to 1200 A.D.) and Inca through early Colonial times (1400 to 1650 A.D.). The earliest of these events suggests that Cerro Rico ores were actively smelted at a large scale in the Late Intermediate Period, providing evidence for a major pre-Incan silver industry.

1 Department of Geology and Planetary Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. 2 Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E3, Canada.

Both authors contributed equally to this work.

[LibKill]

I have said it before and I say it again.

The ancients were not stupid just because they did not have our technology.

Anyone who disagrees with this is invited to chip a six-inch flint knife using primitive tools.

[blam]

Historic Atlantis In Bolivia

[stockpirate]

bttt

[Bernard Marx]

Metals found in lake mud in the central Peruvian Andes have revealed the first evidence for pre-Colonial metalsmithing there.

Where is "there?" After 2 or 3 readings I can't tell whether they're talking specifically about the high Andes near Tiwanaku or the Andean region as a whole.

For years I've been gathering data about the amazingly advanced metalsmithing skills of the Moche, who occupied the coastal region of northern Peru from the first to eighth centuries A.D., certainly pre-Colonial.

If they're talking about the high Andes, sophisticated gold objects have been recovered from the bottom of Lake Titicaca, where they were deposited as ceremonial offerings at a very early date.

It's clear to me that there was a very long tradition of skilled metalsmithing in Peru and Colombia, at least, and probably elsewhere. Some of the things the Moche accomplished were astonishing.

[Free Vulcan]

bookmark

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

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[SunkenCiv]

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