Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Discussion: Mineral Resources and Prehispanic Mining

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Mining and Quarrying in the Ancient Andes

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology ((IDCA))

Abstract

My discussion primarily addresses the second half of this book (Chaps. 7–14) that presents case studies of pre-Hispanic mining, the process of extracting a wide range of minerals from the earth, commonly metallic ores for smelting and decorative purposes. Richard Burger comments on the first half that relates more closely to quarrying, a type of mining that in archaeology commonly refers to the extraction of dimension, or architectural, stones for construction and decorative purposes and noncrystalline and microcrytalline minerals and rocks for tool making. My comments are thematically organized and written from the vantage of personal knowledge and experience garnered over 3 decades on diverse aspects of the integrated process of pre-Hispanic mining and metallurgy in the Andes, particularly on the north coast of Peru.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aitken, M. J. (1998). An introduction to optical dating: The dating of quaternary sediments by the use of photon-stimulated luminescence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakewell, P. (1984). Mining in colonial Spanish America. In L. Bethell (Ed.), The Cambridge history of Latin America (Colonial Latin America, Vol. II, pp. 105–152). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird, J. (1979). The “Copper Man”: A prehistoric miner and his tools from Northern Chile. In E. P. Benson (Ed.), Pre-Columbian metallurgy of South America (pp. 105–132). Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloxam, E. (2011). Ancient quarries in mind: pathways to a more accessible significance. World Archaeology, 43(2), 149–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buikstra, J. E. (1991). Out of the appendix and into the dirt: Comments on ten years of bioarcheological research. In M. L. Powell, A. M. Mires, & P. Bridges (Eds.), What mean these bones? Studies in Southeastern bioarchaeology (pp. 172–188). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavanagh, J. (2011). Las Minas del Perú—Top mining companies in Peru 2009–2011. Lima: Peru Top Publications S.A.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavanagh, J., & Glover, M. (1991). Mines and miners in Peru/Las Minas del Perú. Lima: Peru Top Publications S.A.C.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooke, C. A., Balcom, P. H., Biestar, H., & Wolfe, A. P. (2009). Over three millennia of mercury pollution in the Peruvian Andes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, 106(22), 8830–8834.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dobres, M.-A., & Hoffman, C. (1994). Social agency and the dynamics of prehistoric technology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 3, 211–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edmonds, M. M. (1990). Description, understanding and the chaîne opératoire. Archaeological Reviews from Cambridge, 9(1), 55–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eerkens, J. W., Vaughn, K. J., & Linares Grados, M. (2009). Pre-Inca mining in the Southern Nasca Region, Peru. Antiquity, 83(321), 738–750.

    Google Scholar 

  • Figueroa, V., Manríquez, G., Salazar, D., Salinas, H., Núñez-Regueiro, P., & Aspillaga, E. (in press). Pre-Hispanic miners from the Atacama Desert (Region of Antofagasta, Chile): Archaeological and bioanthropological evidence. Special issue of Chungará. Selected papers of the first international meeting on Prehispanic mining in the Americas edited by Diego Salazar, Valentina Figueroa, Victoria Castro and Germán Manríquez.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helms, M. W. (1993). Craft and the kingly ideal: Art, trade, and power. Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling, and skill. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Killick, D. (2008). Archaeological science in the USA and in Britain. In A. Sullivan (Ed.), Archaeological concepts for the study of the Cultural Past (pp. 40–64). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larco, R. (2001). Los Mochicas (Tomo II). Lima: Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lechtman, H. N. (1976). A metallurgical site survey in the Peruvian Andes. Journal of Field Archaeology, 3, 1–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lechtman, H. N. (1979). Issues in Andean metallurgy. In E. P. Benson (Ed.), Pre-Columbian metallurgy of South America (pp. 1–40). Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lechtman, H. N. (1988). Traditions and styles in Central Andean metalworking. In R. Maddin (Ed.), The beginning of the use of metals and alloys (pp. 344–378). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lechtman, H. N. (1993). Technologies of power: The Andean case. In J. S. Henderson & P. J. Netherly (Eds.), Configurations of power: Holistic anthropology in theory and practice. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lechtman, H. N. (2007). The Inka, and Andean metallurgical tradition. In R. Burger, C. Morris, & R. Matos Mendieta (Eds.), Variations in the expression of Inka Power (pp. 313–355). Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lechtman, H. N., & Macfarlane, A. (2005). La metalurgia del bronce en los Andes Sur Centrales: Tiwanaku y San Pedro de Atacama. Estudios Atacameños, 30, 7–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemonnier, P. (1992). Elements for an anthropology of technology (Anthropological papers, Vol. 88). Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemonnier, P. (1993). Introduction. In P. Lemonnier (Ed.), Technological choices: Transformation in material cultures since the neolithic (pp. 1–35). London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1993). Gesture and speech [Anna Bostock Berger, Trans., from French]. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, C. W. (1921). Prehistoric mining in Western South America. Natural History, 21(5), 453–456.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, A. S., & Olley, J. M. (2002). Precision and accuracy in the optically stimulated lumniscence dating of sedimentary quartz: a status review. Geochronometria: Journal on Methods and Applications of Absolute Chronology, 21, 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Núñez, L. (1999). Valoración minero-metalúrgica circumpuneña: menas y mineros para el Inka rey. Estudios Atacameños, 18, 177–221.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oehm, V. P. (1984). Investigaciones sobre Minería y Metalurgia en el Perú Prehispánico: Una Visión Crítica Actualizada (Bonner Amerikanistische Studien, Vol. 12). Bonn: Universitat Bonn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petersen, G. G. (1970). Minería y metalurgia en el antiguo Perú (Arqueológicas, Vol. 12). Lima: Museo Nacional de Antropología y Arqueología.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petersen, G. G. (2010 (1970)). Mining and metallurgy in ancient Peru [Brooks, W. E., Trans.]. Boulder, CO: The Geological Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raimondi, A. (1874). El Perú, Parte Preliminar (Tomo I). Lima: Imprenta del Estado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raimondi, A. (1876). El Perú, Historia de la Geografía del Perú (Tomo II). Lima: Imprenta del Estado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raimondi, A. (1878). Minerales del Perú o Catálogo Razonado de una colección que representa los principals tipos de minerals de la República con muestras de huano y restos de aves que lo han producido. Lima: Imprenta del Estado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raimondi, A. (1880). Perú, Historia de la Geografá del Perú (Tomo III). Lima: Imprenta del Estado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raimondi, A. (2004[1887]). Minas de Oro del Perú. In Colección Estudios Geológicos y Mineros para la obra “El Perú”, Vol. I, compiled by Villacorta, L. F. (pp. 93–159). Compañía de Minas Buenaventura, Asociación Educacional Antonio Raimondi, Fondo Editorial de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reindel, M., & Wagner, G. A. (Eds.). (2009). New technologies in archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Nasca and Palpa, Peru. Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlanger, N. (1994). Mindful technology: Unleashing the chaîne opératoire for an archaeology of mind. In C. Renfrew & E. Zubrow (Eds.), The ancient mind: Elements of cognitive archaeology (pp. 143–151). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sellet, F. (1993). Chaîne opératoire: the concept and its applications. Lithic Technology, 18, 106–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I. (1985). Perception, procurement and management of resources: Archaeological perspective. In S. Masuda, I. Shimada, & C. Morris (Eds.), Andean ecology and civilization (pp. 357–399). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I. (1994). Pre-hispanic metallurgy and mining in the Andes: Recent advances and future tasks. In A. C. Craig & R. C. West (Eds.), In quest of mineral wealth: Aboriginal and colonial mining and metallurgy in Spanish America (Geoscience and man, Vol. 33, pp. 37–74). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I. (1998). Bienes Exóticos y Metodología Arqueológica: ¿Qué Tan Viables Son Nuestros Datos Sobre Interacción Interregional. In F. Cárdenas-Arroyo & T. L. Bray (Eds.), Intercambio y Comercio entre Costa, Andes y Selva: Arqueología y Etnohistoria de Suramérica (pp. 223–254). Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I. (2007). Introducción. In I. Shimada (Ed.), Craft production in complex societies: Multi-crafting, sequential production, and producers (pp. 1–21). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I. (2011). Hacia una mejor integración de la arqueometría y la arqueología andina: El caso de Pachacámac. In Vetter, L., Vega-Centeno, R., Petrick, S., & Olivera, P. (Eds.), Actas del II Congreso Latinoamericano de Arqueometría. Lima, 19 al 21 Octubre de 2009 (pp. 29–54). Fondo Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, Lima. In press assessment and prospect. Special issue of Chungará. Proceedings of the first international meeting on Prehispanic mining in the Americas, Taltal-San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. 29 Nov to 5 Dec.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I. (in press). Assessment and prospect. Special issue of Chungará. Selected papers of the first international meeting on Prehispanic mining in the Americas edited by Diego Salazar, Valentina Figueroa, Victoria Castro and Germán Manríquez.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I., & Craig, A. K. (in press). The style, technology and organization of Sicán mining and metallurgy, Northern Peru: insights from holistic study. Special issue of Chungará. Selected papers of the first international meeting on Prehispanic mining in the Americas edited by Diego Salazar, Valentina Figueroa, Victoria Castro and Germán Manríquez.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I., Epstein, S. M., & Craig, A. K. (1982). Batán Grande: a prehistoric metallurgical ­center in Peru. Science, 216, 952–959.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I., Goldstein, D. J., Wagner, U., & Bezúr, A. (2007). Pre-Hispanic Sicán furnaces and metalworking: Toward a holistic understanding. In R. Lleras Pérez (Ed.), Metalurgía en la América Antigua: Teoría, Arqueología, Simbología y Tecnología de los Metales Prehispánicos (Travaux de l’Institut Français d’Études Andines, Vol. 253, pp. 337–361). Lima: Fundación de Investigaciones Arqueológicas Nacionales, Banco de la Republica, Bogotá and Instituto Frances de Estudios Andinos.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I., & Merkel, J. F. (1991). Copper alloy metallurgy in ancient Peru. Scientific American, 265, 80–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I., & Vega-Centeno, R. (2011). Peruvian archaeology: Its growth, characteristics, practice and challenges. In L. Lozny (Ed.), Comparative archaeologies (pp. 569–612). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Shimada, I., & Wagner, U. (2007). Craft production on the pre-Hispanic North Coast of Peru: A holistic approach and its results. In J. Skibo, M. Grave, & M. Stark (Eds.), Archaeology as anthropology: Theoretical and methodological approaches (pp. 163–197). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sillar, B., & Tite, M. (Eds.). (2000). Technological choices in ceramic production. Archaeometry, 42(1).

    Google Scholar 

  • Slotta, R., & Schnepel, I. (Eds.). (2011). Schätze del Anden: Chiles Kupfer für die Welt. Bochum: Deutschen Bergbau-Museums Bochum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stöllner, T. (2009). Gold in Southern Peru? Perspectives of research into mining archaeology. In M. Reindel & G. A. Wagner (Eds.), New technologies for archaeology: Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru (pp. 393–407). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Truhan, D., Burton, J. H., & Olsen Bruhns, K. (2005). El cinabrio en el mundo andino (Vol. 18, pp. 193–206). Cuenca, Ecuador: Revista de Antropología.

    Google Scholar 

  • Villacorta, L. F. (2004). Antonio Raimondi, context histórico de su labor geológica y minera. In Colección Estudios Geológicos y Mineros para la Obra “El Perú”, Vol. I, compiled by L. F. Villacorta (pp. 19–66). Lima: Compañía de Minas Buenaventura, Asociación Educacional Antonio Raimondi, Fondo Editorial de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, O. E., Jr. (1994). Black legends and silver mountains: Spanish mining in colonial Latin America reconsidered. In A. C. Craig & R. C. West (Eds.), In quest of mineral wealth: Aboriginal and colonial mining and metallurgy in Spanish America (Geoscience and man, Vol. 33, pp. 109–118). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

I thank the editors Kevin Vaughn and Nicholas Tripcevich for their invitation to serve as a discussant of their symposium at the 2011 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Sacramento and this volume. I am grateful to Melody J. Shimada for providing me with valuable comments and editorial assistance on a draft of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA

    Izumi Shimada

Authors
  1. Izumi Shimada
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Izumi Shimada .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Archaeological Research Facility, University of California, Berkeley, College Building 2251, Berkeley, 94720-1076, California, USA

    Nicholas Tripcevich

  2. , Department of Anthropology, Purdue University, West State St 700, West Lafayette, 47907, USA

    Kevin J. Vaughn

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Shimada, I. (2013). Discussion: Mineral Resources and Prehispanic Mining. In: Tripcevich, N., Vaughn, K. (eds) Mining and Quarrying in the Ancient Andes. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5200-3_16

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation