Lechtman 1976.pdf

A Metallurgical Site Survey in the Peruvian AndesAuthor(s): Heather LechtmanSource: Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1976), pp. 1-42Published by: Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/529806Accessed: 21/03/2010 11:38

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=boston.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Boston University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of FieldArchaeology.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/stable/529806?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=boston

Introduction Purpose of the Survey

Until recently scholars interested in the development of Andean metallurgy have attempted to reconstruct the salient features of that development through laboratory investigation of metal artifacts.l Such studies

1. Paul Bergsfe, "The Gilding Process and the Metallurgy of Copper and Lead Among the Pre-Columbian Xndians,' IngeniXrviden- skabelige Skrifter A46 (1938) 1-56; idem, "The Metallurgy and Technology of Gold and Platinum Among the Pre-Columbian In- dians," IngeniXrvidenskabelige SkriJfter A44 (1937) 1-45; Earle R. Caley, "Chemical Composition of Ancient Copper Objects of South America," in Application of Science in Examination °f Works of Art, W. J. Young, ed. (Boston 1973) 53-61; Earle R. Caley and Dudley T. Easby, Jr., "The Smelting of Sulfide Ores of Copper in Preconquest Peru," AmAnt 25 (1959) 59-65; Dudley T. Easby, Jr., "Los Vasos Retratos de Metal del Peru," Revista del Museo Nacional, Lima 24 (1955) 137- 153; idem, "Two 'South American' Metal Techniques Found Recently in Western Mexico," AmAnt 28 (1962) 19-24; idem, "Aspectos Tecnicos de la Orfebreria de la Tumba 7 de Monte Alban," Memorias del Instituto Nacional de Antropologla e Ilistoria 3 (1969) 345-406; Dudley T. Easby, Jr., Earle R. Caley, Khosrow Moazeds ;'Axe-money: Facts and Speculationy' Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropologicos 21 (1967) 107-149; G. A. Fester, 'iCopper and Copper Alloys in Ancient Argentina,' Chymia 8 (1962) 21-31; Heather Lechtman, "The Gilding of Metals in Pre-Columbian Peru" in Application of Science in Examination of Works of Art, W. J. Young, ed. (Boston 1973) 38-52; idem, "A Tumbaga Object from the High Andes of Venezuela," AmAnt 38 (1973) 473-482; Heather Lecht- man and Michael E. Moseley, "The Scoria at Chan Chan: Non- Metallurgical Deposits," Nawpa Pacha 10-12 (1975) 135-185; Heather Lechtman, Lee A. Parsons, William J. Young, "Seven Matched Hollow Gold Jaguars from Peru's Early Horizon," Studies in Pre- columbian Art and Archaeology 16 (1975) 1-45; P Rivet and H. Arsan- daux, La Metallurgie en Amerique Precolombienne, Travaux et Memoires de l'Institut d'Ethnologie 39 (Paris 1946); William C. Root

have been and will continue to be a primary source of data for the interpretation of the role of metals and of metallurgy in the Andean area. But metal objects are, after all, the products of complex technological systems, and by limiting our investigations solely to them we tend to ignore the fundamental stages that precede the fabrication of the object itself. Mining, ore processing, fuel preparation, smelting and so forth are the ess-ence of any metallurgical technology, and it is only through an intimate understanding of these processes and the in- terrelations among them that we can begin to talk about the Andean metallurgical industry with any sophistication. It is not just the products of that industry that concern us, nor even primarily the techniques that it employed, but the nature and organiza- tion of the work force involved, the economic and political control of resources such as ores and fuel, the articulation of Andean metallurgy with other aspects of Andean technology and Andean culture. Ultimately, we would like to be able to describe what is specifi1cally An- dean about Andean metallurgy, and how it compares with the other great metallurgical traditions of ancient societies. These questions can be answered only if we consider Andean metallurgical technology in its broad- est sense as a system that unites people, resources, and energy in an organized way consistent with the cultural

"The Metallurgy of the Southern Coast of Peru;" AmAnt Is (1949 10-37; idemt "Gold-Copper Alloys in Ancient America," JChemEd 28 (1951) 76-78; idem, "Pre-Columbian Metalwork of Colombia and Xts Neighbors," in Essays in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, Samuel K. Lothrop, ed. (Cambridge, Mass. 1964) 242-257.

A Metallurgical Site Survey in the Peruvian Andes

Heather Lechtman Massachusetts Institute of Technology

To help document and interpret the development of pre-Columbian metallurgy prior to the Spanish invasion of the Andes, the author conducted a survey of portions of northern and southern Peru to identify and describe early metallurgical sites including mines, ore-processing areas, smelting installations. Several of the more interesting sites are discussed in detail. Coastal and highland sources of copper ores were identified, particularly along the north coast and in the altiplano bordering Lake Titicaca. Among the most provocative results of the survey is new evidence that sulf de ores of copper were being smelted long before the arrival of the Europeans, thereby indicating a level of sophistication of A n- dean metallurgy not previously recognized.

2 A Metallurgical Site Survey in the Peruvian Andes/Lechtman

and ecological imperatives of the Andean scene. A F1rst step toward such an appraisal must be the ex-

cavation of sites where the basic processes such as mining, ore preparation, and smelting were carried out. Our information about them is virtually nil. The Spanish invaders of the 16th century were overwhelmed with the quantity of gold and silver in use by the Inca and devoted centuries of unceasing effort thereafter to exploit these resources and the peoples who had tradi- tionally been mining them. The Europeanss fixation on these two precious metals resulted in frequent mention of gold and silver in their writing, whereas copper, the real backbone of Andean metallurgy, is rarely mentioned. The Spanish chroniclers are equally silent about the technical aspects of Andean metallurgy. The Elrst important work describing mining and smelting operations is Alonso Barba's 1640 treatise Arte de los Metales2 which sets forth in detail both the pyro- technical and amalgamation operations at the great Spanish silver mining complex in Potosi, Bolivia. By that time, however, a full 100 years after the invasion, many Spanish practices had already been introduced, and we cannot rely upon Barba as a source for reconstructing the indigenouss pre-contact technology. Although many pre-Columbian objects of metal have been excavated in the Andes, to my knowledge there has been no archaeological excavation of a metalworking site.3 Thus archaeology and ethnohistory have thus far failed to provide the data we seek.

2. Alvaro Alonso Barba, Arte de los Metales (1640), Armando Alba, ed., Coleccion de la Cultura Boliviana 11 (Potosi 1967). There have been numerous editions and translations of Barba's treatise, though many are based on the 1770 Madrid edition rather than on the original of 1640. I have used Armando Alba's edition published in Potosl, Bolivia because Alba, Director of the Casa de Moneda at Potosi, is intimately familiar not only with the history of Barba's life and the surroundings in which he wrote his Arte de los Metales, but because as head of the mint and the museum that houses the metallurgical history of Potosl, he is also an historian of Colonial metallurgy in the Andes. Alba's edition is exceptional, too, by virtue of an appendix he has included consisting of"additions and rec- tiElcations" made by an "antiguo minero," an old Bolivian miner, in the margins of an early edition of Barba's book These are comments upon the various metallurgical processes described by the Spanish priest in his treatise. An English translation of Barba is that of Ross E. Douglass and E. P. Mathewson, El Arte de los Metales (New York 1 923).

3. John Topic, working as a member of the Harvard University Moche-Chan Chan project, excavated in 1972 what may have been a metalsmith's workshop at site H75BJ, an area at Chan Chan located south of the Ciudadela Laberinto, west of the northern Rivero Annex and the Ciudadela Rivero itself, and north of Wachaque Grande. At one location in this area, which is generally characterized by small, agglutinated, irregular rooms, he found finely polished hammer

In reviewing the situation, it became clear that a broadly-based survey of the Andean zone, in those areas where metallurgical technology was an important activity in the pre-Spanish era, was necessary to locate and describe sites where subsequent excavation would yield information about at least one of the many aspects of the indigenous metallurgy. The need for such a survey was made more dramatic by the results of the excavations Michael Moseley and I conducted in 1970 in several presumed metal-smelting areas within the monumental architectural complex of Chan Chan, capital of the Kingdom of Chimor, on the Peruvian north coast.4 Since 1877, when SquierS first reported the presence of a large metal-smelting furnace sn Chan Chan, archaeologists and metallurgists who visited the site and collected pieces of scoria from the furnace (a rectangular structure enclosed by adobe brick walls and measuring roughly 70 m. x 25 m.) have considered it a Chimu smelter capable of producing large quantities of

stones, a stone anvil, several sherds with copper mineral accretions, and fragments of copper cakes or ingots. Through the courtesy of the Project I was able to study and photograph these materials in Trujillo.

Luis Rodriguez Orrego, in his thesis entitled Aspeetos de la Colonizacion Incaica Caraeterizados a traves de la Mineria y la Meralurgia (submitted in 1974 for the degree of Licenciado en Ar- queologia to the Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Ciencias Antropologicas y Arqueologicas, Universidad de Chile, Sede Oriente), describes two smelting sites, one in northern Chile and one in NW Argentina, which his survey and excavations indicate may have been pre-Spanish. At the site of Vina del Cerro, in the Copiapo Valley, there are the remains of 26 smelting furnaces, arranged in three parallel rows, on a windy hillside. Only the circular stone bases of the furnaces remain, measuring 1-1.5 m. in diameter. The superstructures were apparently of adobe. Traces of copper mineral were found on the surrounding surfaces as well as pieces of slag whose analyses indicated the presence of copper. Rodriguez mentions the presence of grinding stones in the form of a batea (trough-like) with their associated manos (hand-held grinding stones) in the area. The associated ceramics suggest the site was Incaic.

Even more interesting is the site of La Encrucijada, situated at 4,- 300 m. in the Calchaqui Valley of NW Argentina. Here Rodriguez reports a group of metal smelting furnaces built on artificial terraces, several habitation areas, and a mineral grinding stone or maray. The circular smelters are made of stoneS measuring I m. in diameter and 0.5 m. high. Series of holes situated in their walls are both for feeding fuel and for entry of air. The maray is of the general type described by Ambrosetti (see note 17) and Boman (see note 14) as common to the Province of Salta. Both ground copper mineral and ground slag were found associated with the maray and at another ore crushing area nearby. Rodrlguez believes the site was dominated by the Inca, but because there is ceramic evidence of a Spanish occupation there, it is extremely difficult to determine whether or not the maray and other surface features are pre-Columbian (L. Rodrlguez, persona1 communication, September 1975).

4. Lechtman and Moseley, op. cit. (in note 1).

5. E. George Squier, Peru, Ineidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Ineas (New York 1877).

Period Dates Late Horizon 1476-1534 A.C.

Late Intermediate 900-1476 A.C. Middle Horizon 540-900 A.C. Early Intermediate 420 B.C.- 540 A.C. Early Horizon 1500-420 B.C. Initial Period 2120-1500 B.C.

Preceramic Periods ?-2120 B.C.

the Mochica, upon a technological foundation already provided by the coastal manifestations of Chavin,8 developed a metallurgy that was unsurpassed in later periods both from the point of view of technical sophistication and quality of craft production. Some 400 years later, the Chimu, whose capital was the monumental city of Chan Chan in the Moche Valley and whose empire extended to the Gulf of Guayaquil to the north and almost as far as the Chillon Valley to the south, introduced little that was new to the basic reper- toire of techniques.9 They manufactured metal objects on a grand scale, however, almost at a mass-production level. The quantity of copper in particular that was smelted during the Late Intermediate Period must have been great to judge merely by the large hoards of copper "points" - agricultural tools, lances, chisels, etc. that are found buried with the dead at sites from Chan Chan to the Lambayeque region (FIGS. 3, 4).10

Until the present study, no field inquiry had been made into the sources of the ores used by these peoples

Das Alte Amerika, Gordon R. Willey, ed. (Berlin 1974) 285-297; Edward P. Lanning, Peru Before the Incas (New Jersey 1967).

8. See Lechtman, Parsons, and Young, op. cit. (in note 1).

9. See Lechtman, 1973 "Gilding of Metals . . .", op. cit. (in note 1).

10. Large numbers of such points are in the collections of the Museo de Arqueologia of the Universidad Nacional de Trujillo and in the Museo Arqueologico Brtining in Lambayeque. Some appear to be the blades of agricultural tools, for their form is almost identical to that of similar blades of steel used today by farmers in the Jequetepeque and Lambayeque Valleys. According to the report of a huaquero (pothunter) who dug up hundreds of these in one of the large burial mounds at Chan Chan in 1953 (personal communication of Cristobal Campana, Director of the Casa de la Cultura, Trujillo) they were found together, as a distinct category of goods, and separate from maZz, frijoles, semillas (maize, beans, seeds) and large jars of flour all of which were similarly buried separately and in large quantity. Similarly, Oscar Fernandez de Cordova reports (personal communication) that Julio C. Tello excavated a graveyard in the Batan Grande area in 1937 where he uncovered hundreds of copper points all massed together and separate from other groups of material. In 1973 an M.l.T. student, Michelle Clubb, and I studied one such point, a chisel-like object from Sipan, and found it to be a Cu-As alloy containing 4.18% arsenic, by weight.

Journal of Field Archaeology/Vol. 3, 1976 3

metal. Our excavations, together with detailed analyses of the materials associated with the site (soil, ash, charcoal, scoria, etc.) demonstrated that the large quantities of scoria within the walled structure were not the result of any metallurgical operation but rather the remains of a conflagration that had destroyed the building and melted the adobe walls, producing large blocks of scoriated earth. The results at Chan Chan indicated that both ignorallce of and inexperience with the processing stages of early metallurgical activity in the Andes have made it difElcult to form judicious opinions about what one might expect to find, what might be possible or improbable. The anomaly of a smelter practically the size of a soccer field had not struck anyone as odd!

The survey discussed in this report was carried out between the months of February and December, 1974.6 The original plan called for coverage of Peru, northern Bolivia, and portions of north and central Chile. It soon became clear that the large territories to be covered together with the difficulty of access of most of the sites and the generally hazardous conditions of travel in the Andes would make such a program unfeasible. Thus two areas were selected for more intensive study, the northern portion of Peru (from the Chao Valley to the Lambayeque Valley on the coast and from Oyon [Sto. de Chuco] to Sinchao [Hualgayoc] in the sierra) and southern Peru (from the San Juan Valley to the Chala Valley on the coast and from Amparaes to the Peru- Bolivia border in the sierra) (FIGS. 1, 2). Similarly, although all types of site were sought whether mines, smelters, or workshops the survey was conducted with several specific issues in mind, and more time and attention were spent on sites that might bear on these problems. I hope to continue the survey in the central sector of Peru as well as in parts of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina in the near future.

Some Fundamental Issues 1. It is well known that one of the great regional

centers for the development of metallurgy in the Andes was the north coast of what is today Peru, speciElcally the Moche River valley and the valleys to the north and south. During the Early Intermediate Period (TABLE 1),7

6. This research was supported by a research fellowship awarded by the American Council of Learned Societies and by an Old Dominion Fellowship from the Department of Humanities at M.l.T.

7. The chronology of Peruvian pre-Hispanic cultures, based on the work of John H. Rowe and Edward P. Lanning, is given in Table 1. Except for the Late Horizon, dates are approximate and were determined by C-14 measurements based on a half-life of (5730 i 40) years. The C-14 values are uncorrected. John H. Rowe, "Stages and Periods in Archaeological Interpretation," Southwestern J. of Anthropologv 18 (1962) 1-27; idem, "Kunst in Peru und Bolivien," in

Table 1. Chronology of Peruvian Pre-Hispanic cultures.

'8t

X ......... .. * 9 s ....................................................................... 3 ¢ Z : / t-

w 91 \ X >W8 ,, a 8 z _ u i o

W ,<£ \\\X < 1 = < < m ° ° I7;

o > M i' | ¢ X @ B_

c J°P | >

f k I m

** l

3 n t ffq

. - e

* sX -

o - . W)

3 _ O B

_

_ o

= _F

o o

O

5L o

O O t

O X oq n pi r

C o 3 t -- gi:M

o CK. w

P1 n X :r

3

P1 ( ) _. _

O p;,

P1 _

.

o o _.

g 3 v _ o

_

=' r

O _F B

O o

O O °

o 3 r O r r _ O o iD - -t -s o o

o t P1 o :r n o X r

m. a.r n - o o o t

= Br O

3 O-3 oq ;1 r _ t_

ro o pl, 5L o

(J _4 3 w P1 o o _ 3

ct, _

- .

oq

.

o

:3

-

:3

o

:r

:3

.

cr

£:L

- *

D

:r o

D

- .

£:L

o :3

:r

:3 £:L -

.

£:L - .

:3

cr

- .

oW

-

;S

o

ow

-

oN

-

-

oE

6 A Merallurgical Site Survey in the Peruvian Andes/Lechtman

Table 2. The most common minerals of copper, arsenic, and tin that may have been used by early metalworkers for the production of copper and its alloys.

Mineral

Cuprite

Malachite

Azurite

Chalcanthite (Blue vitreol)

Brochantite

Atacamite

Chrysocolla

Chalcocite

Covellite

Chalcopyrite (Copper pyrites)

Bornite

Tetrahedrite*

Tennantite*

Enargite

Domeykite

Olivenite

Chenevixite

Arsenopyrite (Mispickel)

Stannite

Formula

Cu20

CU2(0H)2C03

CU3(oH)2(Co3)2

CuS°4S5H 2°

Cu4(SO4) (OH)6

Cu2(0H)3C 1

CUSio3o2H2O

Cu2S

CuS

CuFeS2

CusFeS4

cUl2sb4st3

CU,2AS4S,3

Cu3AsS4

Cu3As

Cu2(As04) (OH)

Cu2Fe2(AsO4)2

(OH)4tH20

FeAsS

Cu2FeSnS4

Composition (Percent, by weight) Cu 88.82 O 11.18 CuO 71.95 C°2 19.90 H2O 8.15 CuO 69.24 CO2 25.53 H2O 5.23 CuO 31.87 S03 32.06 H2O 36.07 CuO 70.36 S03 17.70 H2O 11.94 Cu 14.88 CuO 55.87 C1 16.60 H2O 12.65 CuO 45.2 SiO2 34.3 H2O 20.5 Cu 79.86 S 20.14 Cu 66.48 S 33.52 Cu 34.64 Fe 30.42 S 34.94 Cu 63.33 Fe 11.12 S 25.55 Cu 45.77 Sb 29.22 S 25.01 Cu 51.57 As 20.26 S 28.17 Cu 48.42 As 19.02 S 32.56 Cu 71.79 As 28.21 CuO 56.22 As2Os 40.60 2° 3.18 CuO 26.40 Fe203 26.49 As2Os 38.14 H2O 8.97 Fe 34.30 As 46.01 S 19.69 Cu 29.58 Fe 12.99 Sn 27.61 S 29.82

Mineral Formula Composition (Percent, by weight) Cassiterite SnO2 SnO2 ca. 92-94io

Fe203 ca. 8-3So

*The tetrahedrite series is composed of minerals of the following general formula: (Cu, Fe, Zn, Ag),2 (Sb, As)4S,3. Cu is always predominant, but considerable substitution takes place, most commonly by Fe and Zn. The Sb-As elements form a complete series from tetrahedrite to tennantite.

Journal of Field A rehaeology/ Vol. 3, 1976 7

of the north coast. The question is compounded by the fact that a glance at current mining activity in Peru, on the part of both large companies and small-scale operators, reveals little exploitation of the north coast. One does not normally regard that area as highly productive in comparison, for example, with the sierra or even with the south coast where at the moment small miners are feverishly engaged in exploiting the rich copper oxide and carbonate veins where even old mines, previously worked, now yield mineral at the 10% concentration level. Secondly, recent studiesll have shown that by the Late Intermediate Period the Chimu were consistently producing copper-arsenic bronzes, and that alloy may even have been a late development of the Mochica four or more centuries earlier. Caley and C. Patterson have suggested that arsenic minerals such as domeykite or olivenite, whose chemical compositions are given in Table 2, were the sources of the arsenic, and Caley goes further to speculate about the use of such complex copper sulfarsenide ores as enargite or tennantite. The survey revealed no evidence for the presence of any of these ores on the coast. In fact, both domeykite and olivenite are extremely rare in Peru. In the northern sierra, however, the sulfarsenides of copper are particularly abundant.

Were the Mochica and Chimu exploiting coastal ores, ores in the highlands, or both? If highland sources were being tapped, who controlled them? Were they obtained through trade or an exchange system of some kind, or is there evidence for "verticality," the overarching model Murral2 has proposed to explain the Andean solution to control of resources that change so rapidly with altitude: the use by nuclear communities of colonists or outliers to exploit for them ecological en- vironments at altitudes higher or lower than their own. Did the Chimu state control its mineral resources in the sierra through colonists of miners that it dispatched or

11. Caley, op. cit. (in note l); Clair C. Patterson iiNative Copper, Silver, and Gold Accessible to Early Metallurgists," AmAnt 36 (1971) 286-321; cf. note 10.

12. John V. Murra, "E1 'Control Vertical' de un Maximo de Pisos Ecologicos en la Economia de las Sociedades Andinas," in Inigo Ortiz de Zfiniga, Visita de la Provincia de Leon de Huanuco (1562) (Huan- uco 1972) vol. 2, pp. 429-476.

otherwise dominated in the highlands? These are important questions, some of which might be partially solved if we could identify the ores and ore sources that were actually in use.

2. What is the geographic relation among an ore source, the smelters that treat the ore, and fuels? What are the overriding criteria that determine the locations of smelters? Are these criteria dominated by technical or ecological factors alone or do social and political realities play a role? For example, are there differences not only in scale but in concept between the ore- smelter-fuel complex of a small but powerful highland kingdom such as that of the Lupaca, who dominated the highland plateau on the sw shores of Lake Titicaca prior to the Inca expansion, and that of the Inca state? Once mineral resources become the exclusive property of the state, once gold and silver become the symbols of the royal lineage to be utilized only by it, once copper- tin bronze was disseminated throughout the Empire as the Imperial metal, the standard of the Inca hegemony, what changes do we see in the earlier established patterns of ore extraction, processing, and the winning of metal?

3. What types of smelters and smelting processes were in use in the Andes? Were coastal smelting systems similar to or quite different from highland systems, and are the differences related to the types of ore being treated? Or was there a pan-Andean style of smelting that may have had varying local developments but that fundamentally was universal? Was uniformity a result of and maintained by the unifying effects of the expansion of the great coastal and highland cultures -- Chavin, M-ochica, Tiahuanaco, Chimu, Inca?

The Spanish chroniclers were intrigued by the Inca wind furnacel3 or huaira frequently described by them

13. The literature written in English describing huairas often refers to them as 'iwind furnaces," and this term has been accepted as syn- onymous with the particular form of furnace described here. A wind furnace in normal metallurgical terminology, however, is one that operates with its own natural draught, i.e. through thermal convec- tion. That is not the way the Andean huaira functioned. It depended upon air entering the furnace through the force of the natural winds that blew in the vicinity. That is why such furnaces were always located where prevailing winds were strong, usually on the windy slopes of hills.


as situated in great numbers on hillsides where, at night, the light from their burning charges resembled a field of stars.'4 The characteristics of these furnaces are not at all clear, however. They all depended upon natural draughts which made windy hillsides optimal locations. They were roughly cylindrical and ca. 1 m. high with a D. of 0.5-l.O m. But reference is also made to a portable type of huairaJ made of clay, and some of the early illustrations of wind furnaces indicate their form (FIGS. 5, 6). They may well have been Spanish adaptations of

Figure 5. Drawing of a huaira as it appears in Alvaro Alonso Barba's 1640 treatise, A rte de los Metales.

Figure 6. A huaira, made of clay, in use in the highlands of Bolivia for smelting argentiferous ores of lead (galenas). Illustration from Robert Peele, Jr., "A Primitive Smelting-Furnace," The School of Mines Quarterly 15 ( 1893) 8-10.

Inca smelters,l5 and in any case none that can be proved to be pre-Columbian has been reported in the archaeological literature despite the fact that they were apparently used by the thousands.l6 At the moment, then, we have virtually no archaeological data about Andean smelters, and where furnaces are reported it is difficult to establish both that the structure described is a metal smelter and that it is pre-Spanish.l' Furthermore, the chroniclers described Late Horizon technology. We have little evidence to indicate the time-depth of that technology, and it is most probable that earlier systems were quite different. Were smelting operations, let us say of the Early Horizon or Early Intermediate Period, carried out in pits dug into the ground, in small ceramic pots, or in braziers of some sort?lB When do actual

14. See Modesto Bargallo, "La 'Guaira,' Horno de Fundicion del Antiguo Peru Estudio de las Referencias de los Cronistas," Mineria (Lima) 91-92 (1969) 43-49, and Eric Boman, Antiquite's de la Re'gion Andine de la Re'publique Argentine et du De'sert d'Atacama (Paris 1908) for the most complete listings of these citations.

15. Bargallo, ibid.; Luis Capoche, Relacion General de la Villa Imperial de Potosi(1585), Lewis Hanke, ed. (Madrid 1959).

16. Bruhns published what may have been a small metal smelter from Colombia, but it is not a huaira. Karen O. Bruhns, "A Quimbaya Gold Furnace?," AmAnt 35 (1970) 202-203.

17. Boman, op. cit. (in note 14); Juan B. Ambrosetti, El Bronce en la Region Calchaqui, Anales del Museo Nacional de Buenos Aires 11 (Buenos Aires 1904) 163-314; see note 3.

18. Barba, op. cit. (in note 2) iv. 4; P. Bernabe Cobo, Obras: Historia del Nuevo Mundo (Madrid 1956) iii. 41.

smelting "structures" appear, and of what materials were they made- clay, adobe brick, baked brick, stone? Was the same kind of smelter used for all ores or were smelters ore-specific? What kinds of system were used for metal refining? Is there any evidence that some form of cupellation was employed?

These were the kinds of questions that were uppermost during the course of the survey. In the discussion that follows, some of the more interesting sites and data are described, and occasionally a partial answer is suggested to some of the issues just raised. But we are a long way from a deep appreciation of the arte de los metales in the Andes.

Ores Because of the Spaniards' almost obsessive involve-

ment in gold and silver mining in the Andes, we have a fair idea of the locations of the major mining centers of the Inca. The early chroniclers mention some of these sites and, what is more, the Europeans took over many of the Inca mines, greatly enlarging their scale of operations by exploiting Andean labor. But it is almost impossible today to locate any of these pre-Spanish mines, and none was identified on the survey. They were often small, pit-like excavations just deep enough to permit the entry of a single miner; many were deliberately sealed and camouflaged by the Inca as the Spanish armies advanced throughout Tawantinsuyu, and the European mines located at the same sites obliterated evidence of Inca or pre-lncaic working.

In comparison with all that was written about silver


and gold, there is scarely a mention by the Spanish of copper being mined or worked by the Andean peoples. Yet from the sheer quantity of copper and copper-alloy objects we have from the Andes, it is clear that the production of copper was a long-standing and important activity from the Early through the Late Horizon.'9 Moreover, the critical stages in the development of An- dean metallurgy are associated with the increasing sophistication with which copper and its alloys were handled. The development of Andean metallurgy as a system of technology is based upon copper, not upon silver or gold, in spite of the special place accorded the latter two metals in Inca cosmology.

Two of the great centers for the manufacture of copper and copper-alloy objects in pre-Columbian Peru were the north coast and the altiplano (high plateau) along the western shores of Lake Titicaca. Today neither of these areas is especially known for its copper resources. Metallogenetic and mining maps from Peru20 indicate virtually no copper mines or untapped copper resources on the north coast. The plains bordering Lake Titicaca are dotted with silver-lead mines, but copper mines occur considerably further to the west in the high, rugged puna. The survey was designed to explore as thoroughly as possible both the north coast and the altiplano in order to determine whether or not copper was being exploited relatively close to the centers of ar- tifact production in these two important areas or if ores were mined at considerable distances from such centers.

The north coast survey included the area between the Chao Valley to the south and the Lambayeque Valley to the north (FIG. 1), roughly corresponding to the region politically uniEled by the Chimu in the Late Intermediate Period and including most of the Early Intermediate Period domain of the Mochica (the valleys between the Chicama and the Nepena rivers). Thus the N-S or littoral extension comprehended that area dominated by the two great copper-working cultures of

19. For an analysis of Early Horizon copper and gilt copper objects from the Lurin Valley, see Gabriela H. Schwoerbel, "Metalurgia de Lima," Actas del Segundo Congreso Peruano del Hombre y la Cultura Andina, 1 El Desarrollo de la Metalurgia en la Zona Andina, H. Lecht- man, ed. (Trujillo in press).

20. The most useful metallogenetic and mining maps of Peru con- sulted during the survey were: Mapa Metalogenetico del Peru (Sociedad Nacional de Mineria y Petroleo, Lima, 1969); Mapa de Yacimientos Metalicos del Peru (Servicio de Geologia y Mineria, Ministerio de Energia y Minas, Lima, 1970); Mapa Minero del Sur del Peru (Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Fomento Minero del Peru and the United States Geological Survey, 1959); and the various Departmental maps published by the Servicio Nacional de Geologia y Mineria, Ministerio de Energia y Minas: Mapa de Yacimientos Metalicos del Dpto. de Apurimac (1970); Mapa Minero del Dpto. de Puno (1970); Mapa Minero del Dpto. de la Libertad (1970); Mapa A{inero de los Dptos. de Moquegua y Tacna ( 1972).

the north, the Mochica and the Chimu. The "coast" was defined to include altitudes from sea level to about 2,000 m., thus incorporating both the narrow, flat strip of desert (interrupted by fertile river valleys) that borders the Pacific, and the intermediate or Andean "foothill" zone between that strip and the high sierra to the east. The intermediate zone was considered that zone which could easily be reached in a day's walk and was not especially difficult of access. After a ten-hour trip on mule-back and on foot from the village of Chorobal (850 m.) in the Chao Valley to a colonial copper mine near the Cooperative of Oyon (2,880 m.) in the mountains to the NE, I decided that my deElnition was a practical one!2' It became clear that this intermediate zone was extremely important in terms of the copper mineral it contains. Table 3 lists some of the sites in the zones surveyed, the kinds of ore or mineral present, and in those cases when ore or mineral was sampled and analysed, the results of those analyses.

The North Coast The Chao River, in its NE course inland from the sea,

divides near the Hacienda Buenavista22 into a northerly branch, the Rio Chorobal, and a southerly, the Rio Huamanzana-Huaraday. The entire zone between these two rivers, roughly within the triangle formed by Buenavista (150 m.), Oyon (2,700 m.) and Guacapungo (2,700 m.), is rich in copper mineral and in silver ores as well. As mentioned earlier,the colonial mines at Oyon (2,880 m.) are copper mines, the ore primarily malachite and cuprite to a depth of about 30 m. Two independent analyses of samples of these ores, one made by a prospector, the other by a miner who recently worked the Spanish site, yielded 30io Cu and 46aSo Cu, by weight. On the opposite side of the river from Chorobal at E1 Alumbre (900 m.) a new copper mine has been opened, and further up valley the Quebrada Higueron is full of copper oxides and colonial mines. At E1 Cortijo (1,025 m.), just east of Casablanca, a Spanish ore- processing and smelting site was visited. The silver and copper ores brought down to the river for grinding were taken from Cerro Cochete immediately to the north; some of this mineral was found at the site. Farther inland, and slightly higher, Cerro Fundicion (2,800 m.) takes its name from the large Spanish smelting site there for winning silver from its ores. Not only is this entire zone rich in the oxides of copper and in silver ores, but

21. Farmers who travel entirely on foot between the two villages to attend the weekly market at Chorobal make the trip in less than half a day.

22. Hacienda is hereafter abbreviated Hda. Q. stands for Quebrada (ravine), and Co. for Cerro (hill).


Table 3. Selected list of metallurgical sites surveyed in the Peruvian Andes.

NORTH COASTAND SlERRA

Site No. * i 1 SF(78°58' 12" LO-

7°12'35" LS)

15F(78°53'56" LO- 7°11'42" LS)

1 SF(78 °47' 15" LO- 7°12'12" LS)

14E(79° 19' 10" LO- 6°57'25" LS)

14E(79°28'48" LO- 6°53'10" LS)

14E(79°17'55" LO- 6°53' LS)

14E(79°24'30" LO- 6°40'48" LS)

14E(79°23'45" LO- 6°40'25" LS)

13D(79°40' LO- 6°24'40" LS)

14D(79°38'20" LO- 6°31'15" LS)

17F(78°54'15" LO- 8°11'25" LS)

17F(78°59'40" LO- 8°7'40" LS)

17F(78°53'15" LO- 8°6'25" LS)

16G(78° 19' 10" LO- 7°58'55" LS)

16G(78°19'35" LO- 7°58'30" LS)

17G(78° 17'40" LO- 8°0'25" LS)

Map No. Department Province Site Mina Zapotal

Mina PaciElco, Llallan

Denuncio Cruz del Cobre (Puente la Mulluna)

Mina Leque Leque

Co. Songoy

Co. Landosa

Pampa de Tablazo

Co. de las Minas, near Tablazo

Mina San Victor, Co. Pan de Azucar

Mina Sta. Marta, Co. Blanco, Batan Grande

Mina Salaverry

El Ingenio

Minas Co. Sto. Domingo

Sitio Fermin Vein

Sitio Co. Portales

Sitio Sta. Cata- lina (Quiruvilca)

Description

Small, modern Cu mine: Chalcopyrite 8 Cajamarca Contumaza and copper oxides and carbonates

Small, modern Cu mine: Chalcopyrite, Cajamarca Contumaza malachite, andcuprite

Copper oxide outcrop: Ore sampled: Cajamarca Cajamarca ca. 12SoCu, byweight

Modern Cu mine: Malachite in a quartz Lambayeque Chiclayo matrix: 8.25g0Cuin tailings

Pre-Columbian site, possibly Late Moche- Lambayeque Chiclayo Early Chimu, with abundant evidence of

copper smelting: scoria, charcoal, mineral, sherds on surface; batan; mineral identified as chrysocolla

Pre-Columbian smelting site, possibly Lambayeque Chiclayo late Chimu: surface sherds, charcoal,

scoria, Cu mineral identified as malachite

Lambayeque Chiclayo Batanes

Copper mine, possibly Colonial; mineral Lambayeque Chiclayo identified as malachite

Copper oxide workings, possibly Lambayeque Lambayeque pre-Columbian

Copper workings, possibly pre-Columbian: Lambayeque Ferrenafe Cu mineral identified as cuprite

and chalcopyrite; galena also present

Small Cu mine, worked by hand; chalcocite La Libertad Trujillo identified; oresampled: 32SoCu,

by weight

Batanes; ore processing site, probably La Libertad Trujillo Republican

La Libertad Trujillo Small Cu workings, possibly Colonial

Sto. de Possible Colonial mines, Zn & Pb La Libertad Chuco workings: surfacesherdsandmineral

Sto. de Colonial mines, Pb & Zn: surface La Libertad Chuco sherds, glass, mineral

Sto. de Colonial ore processing site; batanes, La Libertad Chuco possible furnace: surface sherds,

13

14

15

16 glass, scoriated stone

9

10

6

s

4

ll

12

Journal of Field A rchaeology/ Vol. 3, 1976 11

(Table 3 continued)

Site

E1 Cortijo SiteNo.* MapNo. Department Province 1 7G(78°26' 15" LO- Sto. de

8°29' LS) 17 La Libertad Chuco

Description Colonial ore processing and smelting

site; adobe furnaces, batanes. surface sherds, minera! (Pb-Ag), scoria

Minas Oyon 17G(78°24'10" LO- 8°23'20" LS)

16F(78°35'50" LO- 7°59'10" LS)

16F(78°35'50" LO- 7°59'20" LS)

16F(78°34'40" LO- 7°38' LS)

Sto. de Colonial Cu mines: cuprite; ore sampled: 18 La Libertad Chuco between 30 and 46No Cu, by weight

Mina la Serpentina

Mina Quebrada Blanca

Fondo la Fabrica

Small Colonial silver mine, worked a media barreta

Small silver mine, probably Colonial, worked a media barreta

Late l9th-early 20th C. smelting site; 2 furnaces for smelting Ag ores: relave, remains of water-powered mill

Remains of metal smelters, pre-Columbian or Colonial: surface scoria

Colonial church & associated architectural structures; remains of several adobe smelters

16th C. clay smelter near site of Colonial church: surface scoria

Pre-Columbian adobe constructions; terraces; possible Inca smelting site: surface scoria and Cu mineral

Metallurgical slags from smelting and/or refining of copper sulfide ores and argentiferous (?) galenas

19 La Libertad Otuzco



Olluco 16F(78°43'10" LO- 7°33'10" LS)

16F(78°43'20" LO- 7°32'15" LS)

l5D(79°34'50" LO- 7°8'5" LS)

l5E(79°22' LO- 7°19'45" LS)

24I(77°9'21" LO- 1 1°46'36" LS)


23 LaLibertad Otuzco

24 LaLibertad Pacasmayo

25 LaLibertad Pacasmayo

CENTRA L COA ST

La Capilla

Iglesia Vieja

Co. Pitura

Ancon 26 Lima Lima

SO UTH COA ST A ND SlERRA

28 Arequipa Caraveli

27 Arequipa Caraveli

-

32N(74°2'38" LO- 15°33'50" LS)

- 32N(74°3'45" LO-

15°37'32" LS)

Matarani

Pueblo Viejo (Cuatro Cercos)

Ore processing site, Colonial, with many huge batanes in zone rich in gold ores

Pre-Columbian habitation site, Inca and earlier; stone batanes for working ore probably Colonial; site opposite La Capitana gold mine

Stone metal smelters, probably Colonial, 29 Arequipa Cailloma said to be for Cu smelting: mineral,

scoria on surface

Metal smelters near pre-Spanish 30 Arequipa Cailloma occupationsite mineral, scoria,

surface sherds

La Fundicion (Callalli)

32T(71°24'27" LO- 15°31'45" LS)

Qqena (Ccena)

31T(71°24'30"LO- 15°29'47" LS)

Co. Chillo & Mina Sta. Maria Celia

30M(75°13'20" LO- 14°34'20" LS)

Inca and possibly pre-Inca occupation site; cerro contains Au in quartz vein; possibly pre-Spanish workings

Colonial occupation and metal smelting site; adobe furnaces partly intact: copper scoria, surface sherds

3 1 Ica Palpa

Villacuri 28L(75°56'40" LO- 13°55'12" LS) 32 Ica Ica

48

12 A Metallurgical Site Survey in the Peruvian Andes/Lechtman (Table 3 continued)

ap No. Department Province Description Possible Inca ore smelting and/or

33 Apurimac Andahuaylas refiningsite;terraceswith fire- reddened channels, charcoal, scoria, surface sherds

Colonial silver ore processing site; 34 Cuzco Calca stone furnace, ore crushing mill,

relave, mineral, batanes

Colonial and possibly pre-Spanish 35 Puno Puno Ag mine

Colonial silver ore processing site; 36 Puno Puno mill, storagerooms, batanes

Metalworking site; evidence of ore 37 Puno Puno preparation andpossiblesmelting;

Colonial, Inca & pre-Inca occupation: Cu mineral, scoria, relave, surface sherds, bones; mineral identified as native copper

Colonial silver ore processing site; 38 Puno Puno mill, adobe furnaces

Colonial silver ore processing site; 39 Puno Puno mill, furnaces

Colonial and possibly pre-Spanish Ag 40 Puno Chucuito mine, worked amediabarreta

Colonial copper mines and ore processing 41 Puno Chucito site; mill and evidence of smelting

activity

Pre-Columbian (Late Horizon) metalworking 42 Puno Chucuito site with later Spanish occupation:

Cu mineral, identiEled as cuprite, malachite and chrysocolla; ore sampled: 24.057O Cu, by weight

Probable pre-Columbian metalworking site 43 Puno Chucuito with evidence of powdered copper ore

44 Puno Chucuito Colonial ore processing site; mill

Site Curamba

E1 Trapiche, Amparaes

Laicacota

Itapalluni (Chorillos)

Plateria

Chiluyo

Andamarca

Nairanaqque

Jaruni -

Llaquepa

Batalla- Rinconada

Trapiche- E1 Molino (Co. Capia)

Paratia

Mawka Paratia

La Rinconada San Francisco

Caca Punco (Chaquiminas)

Site No. * Md 28P(73°8' LO-

13°37'20" LS)

72°5' LO 13°2' LS**

32V(70°1'28" LO- 15°52' LS)

32V(70°3'10" LO- 15°52'50" LS)

32X(69°50' LO- 15°56'48" LS)

33V(70°9' LO- 16°5'34" LS)

33V(70°6'32" LO- 16°5'20" LS)

69°25'48" LO- 16° 13'24" LS**

69°34' LO- 16°20' LS**

69° 12'24" LO- 16°21'12" LS**

69°12'24" LO- 16°19'54" LS**

69°5'12" LO- 16°25'54" LS**

31 U(70°35'43" LO- 15°27'5" LS)

31 U(70°36'48" LO- 15°36'57" LS)

69°31'42" LO- 13°39'36" LS**

30X(69°32'55" LO- 14°40'32" LS)

Lampa Colonial Ag-Pb mine

Colonial ore processing site; hornos, Lampa mill, associated structures:

surface sherds, relave, dung charcoal

Colonial and possibly pre-Spanish Au Sandia mining and processing site, still

in use; quEmbaletes

Colonial Au washing site and habitation Sandia site; sluices, represa, houses, corral

45

Puno

Puno 46

Puno 47

Puno

(Table 3 continued) Journal of Field A rchaeology/ Vol. 3, 1976 13

Site

Fundicion Site No. * Map 69°45'24" LO-

14°27'12" LS** 49

No. Department Province Description Ore smelting site, probably Colonial:

scoria, mineral (unidentiEled)

Colonial Au mine and Au washing site (lavadero)

Puno Sandia

Huacchani 69°44'6" LO- 14°28'36" LS** 50

Puno Sandia

*All site numbers are given in the form specified in 1973 by the Departamento de Monumentos Ar- queologicos of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Peru. The number and letter preceding the parentheses corresponds to the quadrangle sheet of the 1:100,000 topographic map of Peru issued by the Instituto Geografico Militar in Lima. The expression within the parentheses is the value of the longitude and latitude coordinates of the site as determined from these maps. For example, Ancon is found on quadrangle 24I (Chancay) and is located at 77°9'12" west longitude and 1 1°46'36" south latitude. The 1:100,000 series maps were not available for those sites marked with a double asterisk (**). Site numbers for Nairanaqque, Jaruni, Llaquepa, Batalla-Rinconada, Trapiche-El Molino (Co. Capia), Fundicion, and Huacchani were obtained from 1:200,000 maps; for Amparaes, from a 1:1,000,000 map, and for La Rinconada San Francisco, from a 1:670,000 map. These latter maps are also issued by the Instituto Geografico Militar.

it was a perfect location for smelting, for the region abounds in los Yoques, large stands of a hardwood tree which serves as an excellent fuel.

Travelling northward to the Viru Valley, one finds rich copper deposits in the area which stretches from the zone known as Unigambal (roughly 2,000 m.) to the east as far as the Hda. Tomobal (200 m.) on the river itself. The northern limit of this area is Juyacul and the southern Huacapongo (400 m.). In the Pampa Colorada (728 m.) in Juyacul there are Colonial mines, and the zone is rich in malachite and chrysocolla as well as in sulfides of copper. This site is almost halfway between the Viru and Moche Valleys. Cerro Huacapongo, which rises from the northern banks of the river to its peak at 1,762 m., also exhibits early mines as well as surface scoria. At the eastern end of the Quebrada de la Bura Vieja (300 m.), which runs roughly the same course as the Rio Seco to the north of the Viru River delta, there are also numerous old copper workings.

Most of the sites visited in the Moche Valley are clustered in the group of hills south of the river, SE of Laredo and almost due east of the port of Salaverry.23 The Mina Salaverry (450 m.), situated in the Co. de la 23. Michael E. Moseley has described to me a series of mines, all within 1 km. of each other, located in the Q. de Ancados, in igneous hills on the north side of Co. Ochiputur (10 km. NNE of the port of Salaverry) at an elevation of ca. 350 m. (The hills Co. Ochiputur, Co. Santo Domingo, and Co. de la Mina are adjacent to one another, lying on the SE side of the Moche Valley between Laredo and Salaverry.) There is pre-Hispanic occupation, principally small ChimC and Inca sites, at different points in the quebrada, but no Colonial occupation was found. There are no artifacts of pre-Spanish or European origin directly associated with the mines, nor can any of the sites in the region be tied to them. The mines themselves, worked by hand, are in the form of simple trenches that followed closely veins of copper ore in a quartz matrix. Chunks of discarded green-stained quartz Moseley collected at the site were analysed in Trujillo and were

Mina, is a copper mine abandoned about 1940. Selected samples of its ore, containing chalcocite, yielded approximately 36So CU, by weight upon wet chemical analysis. The sets of grinding stones used to crush the ore24 extracted from the mine were found at a site called E1 Ingenio (sea level), immediately to the west of the Huaca del Sol. Recently a miner opened a small shaft here to exploit a new vein, and sacks of comminuted ore were found stacked outside the mine entrance. Micro- scope examination of a sample of this ore proved it to be a low grade chrysocolla. Slightly farther north, the foothills of the Co. Santo Domingo (260 m.) are pock marked with small pits from which copper ores were extracted, possibly in the Colonial period. Copper sulfides, copper carbonates, and chrysocolla were all identified in the walls of these pits during the survey. Dr. Luis Rodriguez Lopez, Professor of History at the UniJversidad de Trujillo, claims to have been guided to a pre-Spanish copper mine at the summit of Co. Santo Domingo (1430 m.) several years ago (personal communication), but our attempts to relocate the mine proved unsuccessful. Due north of Laredo, on the opposite side of the river, many Colonial mines are situated in the Co. de Las Minas, particularly in that area known as the Co. Dios Dado (1,800 m.). Here the ores are complex: copper, silver, gold, and lead are all found together.

Interestingly, the survey of the Chicama Valley yielded no obvious outcrops of copper ores or remains of

found to contain copper. Moseley's impression was that the most easily accessible copper ore was stripped from the vein, and that a greater labor investment would have been needed to follow the vein further (personal communication, August 1975).

24. For a general discussion of the Andean system of grinding ores, see the section on "Ore Processing."


gold workings. At the site of Olluco-La Capilla, situated on the river at an elevation of 820 m., there are remains of Colonial smelting furnaces, but these may have been used to smelt the rich silver ores in Co. Carangas (2,000 m.) which is further inland and just west of the town of Lucma. It should be noted, however, that a few km. to the west of Olluco, at Pueblo Viejo (800 m.), there is a large Chimu site which dominates this intermediate zone between the coast and the sierra. No evidence of metallurgical activity was found there, however.

In the next valley to the north, formed by the Rio Jequetepeque, many outcrops of copper mineral were found and sampled. Some of these outcrops are currently being worked. The hills bordering the river to the north, between Gallito (450 m.) and Tembladera (400 m.), are full of the oxides and carbonates of copper. In addition, Co. Sapo and Co. Pena Blanca have particularly rich deposits of arsenopyrite (FeAsS). Follow- ing the river inland, one passes Zapotal (900 m.), Llallan (900 m.), and Chilete (1000 m.), finally crossing the Rio Magdalena at the Puente La Mulluna (1,000 m.). Each of these sites, with the exception of Chilete, contains substantial deposits of copper ore, primarily oxides and carbonates of copper, but chalcopyrite was also identified at Zapotal, the Mina PaciElco at Llallan, and at the Puente La Mulluna. The Mina Paredones, just north of Chilete, was one of the most famous Por- tuguese and, later, Spanish silver mines in northern Peru. The 16th century Visita . . . a las Siete Guarangas de la Provincia de Caxamarca . . . de 1540 published by Waldemar Espinosa,25 together with the Visita General of 1572-74 leave no doubt, however, that the silver was worked much earlier by Andean miners. It should be remembered, too, that the zone described here which hugs the river for a distance of about 55 km. is particularly rich in archaeological remains, both occupation sites and burial sites, from the Early Horizon and subsequent periods.

The most interesting sites in all the north coast valleys surveyed were several in the Zana Valley, for both pre-Columbian smelting sites and sources of copper ore were found in close proximity. The survey included the area in the valley from the town of Zana (sea level) inland to the village of Viru (324 m.) on the northern branch of the Rio Zana, and to the village of Nanchoc (400 m.) on the southern branch which changes its name to the Rio Nanchoc. The hills in this zone Co. E1 Portachuelo (Co. Alumbral), Cos. de la Ramada, Co. Derrumbe, Co. Leque Leque, Co. Con- quis are extremely rich in copper ores. At Co.

25. Waldemar Espinosa S., "E1 Primer Informe Etnologico Sobre Cajamarca. Ano de 1540," Revista Peruana de Cultura 11-12 (1967).

Songoy (100 m.), a small hill on the northern bank of the river to the east of Hda. Cojal, abundant remains of pre-Spanish copper working were found: small pieces of mineral, charcoal, broken sherds with scoriated inner surfaces and accretions of copper slags, a large grinding stone possibly for crushing the copper ore. X-ray diffraction analysis of several mineral samples taken from the site proved them to be chrysocolla (CuSiO3a2H2O).26 On the day that the site was visited, a group of huaqueros (pot hunters) was digging what appeared to be Late Intermediate Period graves in the tiny Huaca Songoy nestled between the two branching foothills of the cerro itself. A detailed description of the Late Intermediate Period smelting site of Co. Landosa, several kilometers SE of the town of Nueva Arica, is given below in the section on "Smelting." Suffice it to say that the mineral found there was malachite, and its source may well have been malachite from the Cos. Leque Leque, several hours walk to the sw. A small bit of mineral found at the site was analysed wet chemically and showed a copper concentrvtion of 28.3go, by weight. At Viru (324 m.), a village to the east of Oyotun, a small mine worked by a local farmer in the Cos. de la Ramada yielded chrysocolla and chalcopyrite. It should be noted that not only were the pre- Columbian smiths of the Zana valley able to exploit the mineral wealth of this region, but it is likely that the in- habitants of the Lambayeque Valley to the north utilized these ores as well. For example, Sipan, a site in the Lambayeque Valley where several large cakes or ingots of cast copper have been found, is only about 13 km. from Zana; the Hda. Pampa Grande that yielded the Late Chavin/Early Moche gold jaguars27 is on the other side of the complex of hills that lies between Co. Songoy and the Rio Chancay, hills which are low (roughly 600-800 m. high) and rich in copper. We should consider the area between the two river valleys from about longitude 79°10' E to 79°40' E as one large copper metallurgical zone.

The Lambayeque Valley, the northernmost valley studied on the survey, is probably as well known as the Moche Valley for the wealth of copper objects found there, particularly the large hoards of copper implements that appear to be agricultural blades, spear points, chisels, etc. (FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate several varieties). For purposes of this study, the valley was

26. All of the petrographic examinations reported in this study were carried out by Robert Kamilli, a graduate student in the Department of Geology at Harvard University, to whom I am indebted not on]y for his expert help but also for the generous allocation of his own research time. Many of the x-ray diffraction analyses were also conducted with his assistance.

27. Lechtman Parsons, Young, op. cit. (in note 1).


oxides were intimately mixed with varying amounts of sulfides that may have been smelted along with them. The Lambayeque, Zana, Jequetepeque, and Chao Valleys have abundant mineral resources, and some of these are being mined today. All the evidence indicates that these ores were systematically exploited by the Spanish and, I am certain, by the Andean peoples long before. Neither the Mochica nor the Chimu had to go farther than the coastal valleys they controlled for their supplies of copper. On the other hand, once copper- arsenic bronze became an important and often-used alloy in the Late Intermediate Period, it is likely that the ores providing the arsenic were mined in the highlands. During the course of the survey in the north, great care was taken to investigate any possible source of arsenic both on the coast and in the sierra. Since it has been argued28 that Peru is sufElciently rich in arsenic minerals such as domeykite (Cu3As), a copper arsenide, and olivenite [Cu2(OH)AsO4] (an arsenate from the weath- ered zones of copper sulfarsenide ores), to have per- mitted the alloying of copper with arsenic either by the direct smelting of the copper-arsenic oxides or by simply melting the already alloyed arsenides, these minerals were sought as were realgar (As4S4) and orpiment (As2S3). Not a single sample of any of these minerals was located either on the coast or in the sierra. Mispickel, or arsenopyrite (FeAsS), is slightly more abundant particularly in the Jequetepeque Valley and in the area between Contumaza (2,700 m.) and Cascas (1,- 200 m.). Raimondi also mentions a sample he located in the District of Trujillo, between Chicama and the Hda. Menocucho.29 It seems much more likely that the source of the arsenic was not any of the arsenic minerals per se but rather the copper sulfarsenide ores that are so abundant in the northern sierra, particularly in the region from Quiruvilca (ca. 4,000 m.) to Sinchao (3,860 m.), which is NW of Hualgayoc, the important Spanish silver-mining center. These ores enargite (Cu3AsS4), tennantite (Cu,Fe),2As4S,3 are as scarce on the coast as they are abundant in the sierra. I found no evidence of them at all on the north coast. Cossio and Jaen30 mention a small mine (1,050 m.) 8 km. north of Ascope (Chicama Valley) where the veins consisted of enargite and chalcopyrite in a matrix of calcite and quartz. The mine was abandoned, they speculate, because of the low copper concentration and the smallness of the vein. On

28. Caley, op. cit. (in note l); C. Patterson, op. cit. (in note 11).

29. Antonio Raimondi, Minerales del Peru (1879) T. 2 (Lima 1939) Sample 1 186.

30. Aurelio Cossio and Hugo Jaen, Ceologia de los Cuadrangulos de Puemape, Chocope, Otuzeo, Trujillo, Salaverry y Santa, Servicio de Geologia y Mineria, Boletin 17 (Lima 1967).

considered that area between the Rio de la Leche and the Rio Chancay, although the two river systems are not connected. Two mines said to have been worked prior to the Spanish invasion were visited, one at the famous Hda. Batan Grande-the huaquero's paradise that has yielded myriad objects of gold, silver, and copper, particularly of Chimu origin and the other in the Co. Pan de Azucar, directly north of the old hacienda. The Mina Sta. Marta (300 m.), located in the Co. Blanco in Batan Grande, was recently mined for copper. About 20 m. of copper oxide were removed between the ancient mine, a small and shallow shaft, and the modern mine below it whose ores were complex, consisting of chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), sphalerite (ZnS), and galena (PbS). The site in Co. Pan de Azucar consisted of several shallow shafts excavated into the rock face near the summit of the hill (ca. 850 m.). The entry to the one mine visited was blocked by fallen rock, but my guide had entered the mine in 1969 and, finding rich veins of cuprite within, made a claim to the site. Further south, in the Chongoyape region of the Rio Chancay, there is a series of copper outcrops and abandoned mines from Tablazo to Los Higuerones. Samples of ore taken from the tailings of a copper mine at Las Minas (250 m.), just east of Tablazo, proved upon x-ray diffraction analysis to be malachite. One sample of pure malachite was found as well as many other less rich ores from the oxidized zone of the vein. Polished sections of these ores showed that the original, unweathered ore was chalcopyrite which had since altered to covellite (CuS) and to cuprite (Cu2O). In fact, almost all the samples studied had been almost completely altered to cuprite, but small centers of chalcopyrite surrounded by a layer of covellite and finally by cuprite were identified. Some of the green mineral on such samples was malachite, but other green areas were simply the quartz rock stained green from disseminated copper salts. It was also interesting to find that on the Pampa de Tablazo, just 1.5 km. from the mine, the plain was full of large batanes, Andean grinding stones that appeared to be in their original locations (see below the section on "Ore Processing"). It may well be that these stones were used for crushing and grinding mineral mined in this zone. Although not a large number of sites was visited in the Lambayeque Valley, it seems clear that the region is rich in copper mineral, particularly on the north side of the Rio de la Leche and on the south side of the Rio Chancay.

It is evident, even from this brief summary of the survey and sites visited, that the north coast of Peru is a zone replete with copper ores, especially the oxides and carbonates of copper that are so easy to smelt. In some areas, oxide deposits were 20-30 m. deep; in others the


Table 4. Analyses of selected samples of ores from the mining districts of Quiruvilca and Sinchao, north highland Peru.

Composition [No, by weight]

Spectrographic Analysis Sample No. Ore Type

(x-ray diffraction determination)

670 Enargite 67 1 Enargite

Wet Chemical Site Analysis

Cu As Fe 45.7 14.0 1.26

A1 Ag Bi 0.34 VFT

0.015 FT- FT T

Ca Mg VFT- FT . _,

. <

Mn Pb Sb Si Sn 0.66 L FT

Sr Ti Zn FT T -

_ T Sinchao Quiruvilca VFT FT FT T 1.97 T T 45.4 1 5.1 1.42

LEGEND: VFT 0.0001-0.001 (Yo

FT 0.001-0.01% T 0.01-O.l<Yo

L 0.1-1.0% Not detected

cluding the Province of Chucuito visited by Diez, before they were conquered and incorporated into the Inca empire.33 The Visita, one of the few published examples of such i'administrative reports of inspections . . . compiled in the Eleld by royal Spanish ofElcials in the Elrst few decades after the European invasion,"34 is essentially an account cabecera (provincial center) by cabecera, parcialidad (moiety) by parcialidad of the lands, herds, and other resources of the Lupaca who controlled the southwestern shores of the Lake, with distant colonies in the coastal river valleys from Arica to at least Moquegua. Among the questions asked by Diez of the caciques (chiefs) of the seven cabeceras of the Province was whether there were mines of silver, gold, or other metal in their respective territories. The answer, of course, was inevitably 'ino." Yet throughout the document the caciques frequently make mention of towns of plateros and olleros, metalworkers and potters, and the Visita is particularly valuable because it names some of the lands with which such craftsmen were associated. For example, the site called Sunacaya is listed as a town of plateros subject to the cabecera of Chucuito.

During the course of the survey, another extremely valuable document pertaining to the Province of Chucuito was found and transcribed by AnaMaria Soldi to whom I am indebted for having brought it to my attention. This is Document No. 256 of the Archivo Especial de Limites in Lima, drawn up in 1685 by Juan Francisco Inda Vidaurre,35 which describes the lands

33. John V. Murra, "Una Apreciacion Etnologica de la Visita," in Garci Diez de San Miguel, ibid. 421-442; idem, "An Aymara Kingdom in 1567," Ethnohistory 15 ( 1968) 1 15-151.

34. Murra, 1968ibid. 117.

35. Juan Francisco Inda Vidaurre, Descripcion de las tierras de la an-

the other hand, wet chemical and quantitative emission spectrographic analyses of selected samples of enargite I collected from Quiruvilca and Sinchao showed them to be rich in arsenic, as is indicated in Table 4.

The implication of the use of complex copper sulfarsenide ores in the pre-Columbian era is, of course, that they are sulfides and, therefore, required special smelting regimes that are more difElcult and sophisticated than those associated with the straightforward smelting of oxide, chloride, and carbonate ores. C. Patterson3' for example, claims that Andean metallurgists never smelted sulElde ores and that the smelting of complex sulfarsenides of copper was virtually out of the question. Research on this extremely important problem of the preparation of Andean copper- arsenic bronze is just beginning, but unless substantial quantities of arsenic mineral suddenly surface on the north coast, I think we must look to the sierra for the key to arsenic bronze and to sulElde smelting in the northern Andes.

The Lake Titicaca Altiplano Poor weather conditions did not permit as rigorous a

survey of the Peruvian altiplano as was conducted on the north coast, but the purpose of the southern survey was also somewhat different. Since the publication in 1964 of the important Visita Hecha a la Provincia de Chucuito por Garci Diez de San Miguel en el Ano 1567,32 Andean scholars have paid more and more attention to the Aymara kingdoms that dominated the altiplano, in-

31. C. Patterson, op. cit. (in note 1 1).

32. Garci Diez de San Miguel, risita Hecha a la Provincia de Churuito . . . en el Ano 1567, Documentos Regionales para la Et- nologia y Etnohistoria Andinas 1, Casa de la Cultura del PerG (Lima 1964).

Journal of Field A rchaeology/ Vol. 3, 1976 1 7

pertaining to the "indios" of the Province of Chucuito in that year. This document lists the ayllus (lineages) associated with each cabecera and the lands they possessed. For the cabecera of Pomata, the ayllu Tacataca Plateros is listed with lands at Llaquepa, Carapasa, and half of Batalla extending to the Co. de Capia. For the cabecera of Acora, the ayllu Plater- oininga is listed, whose lands are called Sunacaya, otherwise known as Plateria (. . . tienen estos Aillos las tierras nombradas Sunacaya, por otro nombre Platerfa . . ), as well as Ypara.

With both documents at hand, the survey was directed toward locating those lands of the Lupaca ex- plicitly mentioned as belonging to plateros. It should be noted here that in the risitas only plateros and olleros are named and distinguished by profession. No other groups are singled out in this manner. "Platero" is the Spanish word for silversmith, but the documents clearly refer to metalworkers, though neither the kinds of metals they treated nor the nature of their activities is described. In the Visita, the Sunacaya lands are subject to Chucuito; in the Limites document, they belong to Acora and are specifically referred to as Plateria. The present lakeside town of Plateria lies two-thirds of the way between Chucuito and Acora, and it seems clear that both documents refer to this site. Furthermore, Elias Mujica B. and John Hyslop, during their 1974 archaeological Eleld survey of the Province of Chucuito, told me of copper "slags" they had seen in the fields of a farmer living on the old Hda. Plateria opposite the main plaza of the town. The Lupaca territory thus seemed a unique region in which to document Incaic or pre-Incaic metallurgy by combining ethnohistorical and archaeological strategies.

The Hda. Plateria (3,8SO m.) is situated on the slopes of the Co. Teecollo at km. 29 on the south side of the main altiplano road between Puno and Desaguadero. Surface evidence of metallurgical activities there take the form of two large Colonial ore grinding stones (FIG. 7) which are almost identical with that from Itapalluni (FIG. 11), abundant small pieces of green copper mineral, an occasional bit of melted copper or slag with a high copper content, and pieces of animal bone stained green from ground water containing copper salts in solution. An old farmer who tills these lands finds, as he turns over the soil, larger pieces of copper mineral, abundant ash and charcoal, and big chunks of earth in- Elltrated with a green, powdery sediment that has been layed down in strata and binds the earth particles

tigua Provincia de Chucuito sacada de las diligencias originales unidas a la matricula de 1685 actuada por Juan Francisco Inda Vidaurre en este partido, Documento 256, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Archivo Especial de Limites, Limites con Bolivia, Lima.

Figure 7. Two abandoned, Colonial ore-crushing stones (the upper stones of a set) in the fields of a farm at Plateria, Province of Puno, Peru. Note the strong resemblance in form between these stones and the stone from Itapalluni (FIG. 11), also from the Peruvian altiplano

together. These materials occur at a depth of about 0.3 m. During the site visit, in an excavation the farmer had made while constructing a new house, we removed large chunks of the compacted, powdered green material that was clearly the remains of finely crushed copper ore. This was the "slag" reported by Mujica and Hyslop. Bits of charcoal were also present and nearby lay broken stone quEmbaletes (see the section below on "Ore Processing"). Some years earlier, at the western end of the site, the farmer had found three stone-lined pits filled with bright green copper mineral. Indeed, this portion of the site had a much denser surface cover of large pieces of copper ore than other areas. Co. Teecollo, which was surveyed about 10 years ago by a mining engineer, contains no copper outcrops, however. Old copper workings in the area occur at Co. Yana- mure, approximately 10 km. to the SE and at Chimchala, just east of the Hda. Terroba and 3 km. from Plateria. The mineral may have been brought to Plateria from such mines.

The fields at the Hda. Plateria contain numerous Inca and Chucuito pottery sherds and, less abundantly, Colonial sherds. The presence of the typical Spanish ore-grinding stones indicates without doubt that the Spanish were processing copper mineral there. The European presence probably also indicates that the site had functioned earlier as a metallurgical center. The old farmer as well as the gobernador of Ccota, the lands contiguous with Plateria to the north, claimed that the site is known to be an Inca smelting site. Both the Visita and the Limites document support this local tradition. No remains of furnaces were found, though the

18 A Atetallurgical Site Survey in the Peruvian Andes/Lechtman

presence of ash, charcoal, and small bits of molten metal and/or slag indicates that smelting or melting was carried out. Thus the lands of the ayllu Plateroininga were given over to winning copper from its ores.

Several of the large green chunks of copper ore collected at Plateria were analysed petrographically and wet chemically. A polished section revealed that the highly altered igneous rock contained large quantities of native copper in particulate form disseminated throughout the matrix. Cuprite (Cu2O) had replaced the copper in many areas, and the surface of the ore was green from the formation of malachite. The wet chemical analysis proved that many ore samples are extremely rich, containing 41.4% Cu, by weight. It is interesting that Raimondi36 collected a sample of copper ore from a mine about 3.4 km. from Juli, one of the seven cabeceras of the Lupaca kingdom, 50 km. SE of Plateria along the main altiplano road. He describes it as containing ziguelina (red oxide of copper, i.e. cuprite) and malachite, intimately mixed with a quartz sandstone. Its copper content he gives as 66%. Raimondi comments that the sample is quite analogous to those from Corocoro in Bolivia (Corocoro is situated in the Bolivian altiplano just 90 km. south of Desaguadero) where one also finds a cupriferous sandstone, with the difference that at Corocoro the ore consists of native copper instead of copper oxides. He reasons, therefore, that it is quite probable one would find native copper in the Juli mine from which his sample came if one went a little deeper.37 Actually at Corocoro, chalcocite is also a primary mineral at depth and would tend to oxidize to malachite and oxides at the surface. Though we do not know the exact source of the ore at Plateria, it seems that the altiplano, at least from Corocoro to Juli, is characterized by copper deposits that contain native copper at relatively shallow depths. Evidently the Plateria ore was extracted from such a source, and it could not have been distant. The trip from Plateria over the lakeside plain to Juli, for example, is only a matter of hours on foot.

The 1685 Limites document names the lands of the Tacataca Plateros, an ayllu in the jurisdiction of the cabecera of Pomata, as Llaquepa, Carapasa, and portions of Batalla extending to the Co. Capia. The communities of Batalla (3,830 m.) and Llaquepa (3,800 m.) on the 1929 Carta Nacional of Peru (1:200,000)38 are

36. Raimondi, op. cit. (in note 29) Sample 1531.

37. Ibid. 580-581.

38. I was unable to obtain a more up-to-date 1: 1,000,000 topographic map of this area, since it is close to the Peru-Bolivia border, and special permission is needed from the Peruvian (Sovernment to ac- quire such maps.

approximately 11 km. SE of Pomata. Both lie in the western foothills of Co. Capia, just off the main altiplano road, and are about 3 km. from one another. On a visit to Llaquepa, an eroded embankment near the schoolhouse was found covered with sherds, green- stained animal bone, and bits of green copper mineral. Large numbers of sherds were located in the general area, almost all of which were Inca in style. Only two were identified as possibly Chucuito pottery, several were Colonial, and several modern. On a farm nearer the road entering Llaquepa, the upper layers of tilled land were mixed with big pieces of bright green copper ore. The farmer explained that the ore appeared at a depth of ca. 20 cm. during plowing. He also found small quantities of ash at about the same depth. No one at Llaquepa knew of furnaces or other metallurgical remains in the area. Everyone, however, knew of the copper mines in Co. Capia. The schoolteacher said an Italian company had worked the mines there as late as the 1930s and it is generally agreed that there are old Colonial workings in Capia as well. Emilio Romero, in his 1927 Monogra%Ia del Departamento de Puno, talks about the rich copper tailings ("ricos desmontes en cobre")39 on the slopes of Co. Capia left by earlier mining activities there. They contained up to 20% copper, he states. Alberto Cuentas40 also refers to Kkapia as a source of copper in his description of the Province of Chuquito.

X-ray diffraction, petrographic, and wet chemical studies were made of samples of the ore from Llaquepa. A polished section of one sample showed that the igneous country rock contains cuprite and malachite and possibly also chrysocolla. The diffractometer charts confirmed the presence of quartz, malachite, and cuprite, and wet chemical analysis gave a 24.0% copper concentration, by weight.

No observable evidence of this kind was found at Batalla nor in the lands called Carapata (Carapasa in the 1685 document) which form part of Batalla, lying slightly to the west of the center of the community. I was shown an area claimed by several villagers to be the site of an ancient smelter where they had found quantities of ash just below the ground surface. Several people also claimed that green mineral and a green ;;powder" had been recently plowed up on one of the farms nearby.

Thus the data provided by the Visita of Garci Diez and the 1685 Limites document about the location of

39. Emilio Romero, Monograffa del Departamento de Puno (1927) 460.

40. Alberto Cuentas, Chuquito. A lbum Grafico e Historico (Lima 1928).


ground in assuming that many of the silver mines worked by the Spanish were exploited earlier by the highland miners. Cuentas43 mentions two important mining areas near Juli, at Nairanaqque (4,000 m.) and at Aruni (Jaruni) (4s100 m.), both of which aroused the enthu- siasm of the Spanish when they Elrst entered the areas since it was evident that Juli was the site of "una her- mosa civilizacion'' (;;a beautiful civilization"). The Jesuits Acosta and Zuniga who visited the area considered Juli an appropriate setting for the establishment of a mission of the Company of Jesus and in 1569 the Jesuits founded a mission there. Cuentas obtained his information about the early years of the Jesuit stay in Juli from the Jesuit documents in the National Library in Lima, documents that were destroyed in the conflagration of 1942. In an interview with Cuentas in Puno in November 1974 he maintained that the documents clearly stated that the two ;;asientos mineros," Nairanaqque and Jaruni, were being worked at the time that Acosta and Zuniga arrived at Juli. Both sites were visited on the survey. Jaruni is surrounded by hills rich in copper ore, and the small Spanish molino for grinding that ore is still in situ; Nairanaqque is situated in a silver-lead zone whose veins were worked by the Spanish a media barreta, that is, following the vein closely and sinking vertical shafts wherever necessary to extract the ore. By 1698, the Spanish were exploiting silver from the Province of Chucuito at such a pitch that the Andean miners were excused from their mit'a service in the silver mines of Potosi in Bolivia in order to work the silver ores of Chucuito itself.44

Further study of the altiplano, aided by ethnohistorical sources, will surely reveal other pre-Spanish metallurgy centers in a zone that is so rich in both copper and silver and that has evidently been exploited continuously at least since the Middle Horizon.

Ore Processing By ore processing I refer to the treatment of ores after

they have been mined to prepare them for smelting. In

43. Cuentas, op. cit. (in note 40).

44. The following passage is taken from Cuentas, ibid. The book has no page numbers. The excerpt is found in the section titled "La Ac- tual Provincia de Chucuito," paragraphs pertaining to mines: . . . Los asientos minerales fueron tan famosos en la Provincia de Chucuito, que en la epoca del Coloniaje, el Conde de la Monclava en carta de 1696, de 10 de junios recibe orden para que los de Chucuito ya no miten en Potosi sino en su provincia. "17 de octubre de 1698. Que en atencion a constar y ser cierto haberse descubierto minas que se lavan y beneElcian en la Provincia de Chucuito, se despacha para que los indios de dicha provincia sean escusados y relevados de ir a mitar al Cerro y minas de Potosi, en el intervalo por todo el tiempo que hubieren minas y se labren y beneElcien en la Provincia de Chucuito."

metalworkers among the Lupaca are excellent and were conElrmed by the survey. The plateros were working copper, both at Plateria and at Llaquepa-Batalla, and the ore was close to the metallurgical centers themselves. Co. Capia must have played a significant role in the metallurgy of three of the cabeceras (Pomata, Yungayo, and Zepita), for the three are situated at the corners of a triangle in the midst of which lies Capia. In fact, at the Cooperativa E1 Molino (3,870 m.) in the southern foothills of Co. Capia, about 11 km. along the road from Zepita to Yungayo and another 2 km. from that road into the hillside itself, there is a Spa-nish molino for grinding mineral. Though no traces of the mineral were found, it must have been from Capia itself.

The Peruvian and Bolivian altiplano are generally considered the locus of the development of copper-tin bronze in the Andes. Considerable discussion has been generated about the source of the tin, and there seems little doubt that most of it came from what is today Bolivia where rich deposits of cassiterite (SnO2) extend all along the Cordillera Real from the southern shores of Lake Titicaca to Argentina in an uninterrupted zone some 800 km. long.4' Tin, in the form of ore or metal, travelled from the Bolivian mines to Cuzco and perhaps farther north as well. Bingham42 reported having found a rolled strip of tin at Machu Picchu, and copper-tin bronze was obviously one of the symbols of state power disseminated throughout Tawantinsuyu by the Inca. But the other vital component of bronze copper was evidently mined closer to home, and the Lupaca metalworkers were exploiting copper locally long before their incorporation into the Inca state.

The survey of the Peruvian altiplano and of the high puna also involved visits to many Colonial ore-processing and smelting sites which abound in that region. Most of these sites are associated with silver mines owned by the Spanish but worked by the Andean populations. Processing sites such as Mawka Paratia (4,375 m.) (mine at Paratia), Itapalluni, also known as Chorillos, (4,000 m.) (mine at Laicacota in Co. Cancharani), Andamarca (4,000 m.) (mine at Picha- cane), and Chiluyo (4S100 m.) (mine at Pichacane) are all in excellent condition and would provide extraordinary data for a student of Andean metallurgy of the Colonial period. Even here, however, we are on Elrm

41. Federico Ahlfeld and Alejandro Schneider-Scherbina, Los Yacimientos Minerales y de Hidrocarburos de Bolivia, Departamento Nacional de Geologia, Boletin 5 (La Paz 1964).

42. Hiram Bingham, Machu Picchu, A Citadel of the Incas (New Haven 1930); see also C. H. Mathewson, '*A Metallographic Descrip- tion of Some Ancient Peruvian Bronzes from Machu Picchu," AJSci 40 (1915) 525-616.


Figure 8. An unusually large lower stone which served as the base for two upper stones of an ore-crushing system. Note the concavities formed by the grinding action of each pair. From Matarani, Chala Valley, Peru.

the pre-Columbian era this probably amounted to no more than the mechanical breaking up of the ore to separate the metal-bearing mineral from the unwanted rocky debris or gangue. Once the mineral has been hand-sorted from the country rock, it is common practice to comminute it still further before it is smelted. An example of this practice is provided at the Late Intermediate site of Co. Landosa, described below in the section on "Smelting," where the ratio of the size of the average chunk of discarded gangue to that of the small pieces of almost pure mineral is about 5:1.

The literature of the l9th century and later abounds with descriptions of ore-crushing systems thought to have been in use prior to the Spanish invasion.45 All of these systems involve the use of sets of two large and heavy stones which crush the ore introduced between them and may also grind and powder the mineral. The upper stone is movable and acts somewhat like a pestle or millstone; the lower is immobile. The ore is placed between the two and crushed or powdered as the heavy upper stone is rocked back and forth upon the base stone.46 The working surfaces of both stones are carefully dressed, and often the upper stone is Flnished on all sides. The lower stone may be nothing more than a large, flat rock whose upper surface slowly becomes concave by virtue of the grinding action (FIG. 8). This

45. Teodorico Olaechea, "Apuntes Sobre el Castillo y Fundicion de Curamba," Anales de la Escuela de Ingenieros de Construcciones Civiles de Minas e Industrias del Peru (Lima) (1901) 1-21; Ambrosetti, op. cit. (in note 17); Boman, op. cit. (in note 14); Ahlfeld and Schneider-Scherbina, op. cit. (in note 41); Georg Petersen, "Mineria y Metalurgia en el Antiguo Peru" Arqueologicas 12 (1970) 1-140.

46. Ahlfeld and Schneider-Scherbina, ibid. Elg. 100.

Figure 9. A pair of ore-crushing stones, probably of the Colonial period. Note the cylindrical hole in the upper stone, used to secure the handle. Height of upper stone ca. 0.75 m. Matarani.

straightforward device, powered by hand or foot,47 by one man or several, continued to be used widely into the Republican period and is not uncommon today. For example, the miners in the small gold-mining village of La Rinconada San Francisco, situated at approximately 5,000 m. above sea level at the snow line of the Nevado Ananea, Province of Sandia, Department of Puno, crush their gold-bearing quartz ores with such quEm- baletes (FIG. 10). Two men stand on either side of the upper stone. They alternate pushing down on the wooden bar fastened to it so that it rocks, in see-saw fashion, on the lower stone.48 In some areas one man stands on top of the stone, straddling it, with a-foot on either side of the bar. By shifting his weight from one side to the other he can rock a large stone ratter easily.

Ore crushers are called by a variety of names. A guide who showed me several abandoned stones used in the 1940s at the site of El Ingenio near the Huaca del Sol in the Moche Valley referred to them as mortero (lower stone) and molejon (upper stone). Large Colonial crushers at the site of El Cortijo in the Chao Valley, near Casablanca, were described by a local resident as molinete (lower) and chungo (upper). The huge stones used by the Spanish for crushing gold ores at Matarani in the Chala Valley were described by the farmer in whose fields they lay as quEmbaletes (FIGS. 8, 9); he did not use separate terms for upper and lower stones. Finally, the miners at La Rinconada San Francisco in Sandia also call these systems quEmbalete but distinguish between the macho (!) or upper stone and the tassa or lower stone. One finds other terms used in the

47. Ibid. Elg. 101. 48. Petersen, op. cit. (in note 45) Elg. 2.

Journal of Field A rchaeotogy/ Vol. 3, 1976 21

literature, such as maray and konacho. 49 The most general term is batan which refers to any grinding system utilizing a set of stones, but this term does not distinguish, for example, between batanes for grinding maize, trigo, or other foods and those for grinding mineral.50

There are few references in the chronicles to ore preparation. Cobo simply says that ore was made into small pieces before smelting, when smelting was performed in ceramic pots, but that once furnaces were used, the ore was introduced into the furnaces as it came from the mine, without being further comminuted.5' Barba, on the other hand, describes different kinds of furnaces for smelting ores in different physical states, ores that are pulverized and ores that are in chunk form.52 By 1640, however, the systems for preparing and smelting or roasting ores at Potos1 had become quite elaborate, particularly because the silver ores had to be specially prepared for amalgamation with mercury, a process introduced by the Spanish for separating the silver from the rocky constituents of the ore body. Baltasar de Ovando,53 writing in 1605, describes smelting in huairas which are charged with "el metal cernido y lavado'' (mineral sifted and washed), as does Capoche. 54

There is no doubt that ores were crushed, the mineral hand-sorted, and later reduced to smaller pieces for smelting. Apart from Barba's illustration of a maray,55

all the other examples of grinders thus far published were found in the 1 9th century and afterwards. A1- though archaeologists such as Boman were convinced that the stones they or others had found were pre- Spanish, it seems unlikely that they were. Ambrosetti believed, rather, that the large marays found in the Calchaqul region of northwest Argentina had not always been used by the local people and suggests that

49. The term maray is used by Boman, op. cit. (in note 14), Am- brosetti, op. cit. (in note 17), and Barba, op. cit. (in note 2). Konacho is found in Barba, idem. and in Olaechea, op. cit. (in note 45).

50. For a good summary of the various terms, many of which are Quechua and Aymara words, suggesting the pre-Spanish use of these grinding systems, see Petersen, op. cit. (in note 45) 69-70.

51. Cobo, op. cit. (in note 18) iii. 41. Note, however, that Cobo is referring here to the winning of mercury from cinnabar, a rather special case utilizing equipment and methods not common to the smelting of other ores.

52 Barba, op. cit. (in note 2) iv. 3.

53. Fr. Baltasar de Ovando, "Descripcion del Peru," in Relaciones Geograficas de Indias, M. Jimenez de la Espada, ed. (Madrid 1965) T.2, Apendice 4.

54. Capoche, op. cit. (in note 15) I. 110.

55. Barba, op. cit. (in note 2) 118.

Figure 10. QuEmbalete currently used by the miners at La Rinconada San Francisco, Province of Sandia, Peru. The gold ores, introduced between the upper and lower stones, are crushed in the presence of mercury which amalgamates with the gold. Water running into the enclosure washes away the rocky gangue. Note the method of attaching the wooden handle.

other stone mortars found throughout the region that are known to have been used for food preparation were probably used at some point for grinding ores as well. Unless we can assume that the upper, dressed stones of these sets, whether found in Peru, Argentina, or Bolivia were all of almost the same size and shape, utilizing virtually identical systems for attaching the long handles of wood, it is more reasonable, I believe, to argue that such stones were made after a common prototype and were introduced by the Spaniards at their many mining and processing centers. For example, Figure 1 1 shows the similarity between one such stone found and measured at Itapalluni (Chorillos),56 and thatswhich Boman described from San Antonio de los Cobres in the Atacama region of Argentina.57 They are not only extremely close in size and shape but even in the diameter and depth of the holes drilled to accept the pegs used for lashing the pole handles in place. Both are close in shape and proportion to the example Am- brosetti illustrates from Capillitas, Argentina.58 I was amazed to find that the diameters and depths of the cylindrical holes in the stones I measured at Spanish sites in many parts of Peru were almost standard - for example, the diameters of those at Matarani are 4 cm. and their depths 10 cm., in comparison with the 5 cm. diameter and 10 cm. depth of the San Antonio de los Cobres maray and the 4 cm. diameter and 10 cm. depth

56. Itapalluni, near the city of Puno, is the almost perfectly preserved site established by Jose Salcedo in the 1670s to process the silver ores from his nearby mine at Laicacota.

57. Boman, op. cit. (in note 14) pl. 41.

58. Ambrosetti, op. cit. (in note 17) fig. 1.

< l.Om >

o

$)),),),1,l ,1,1,ll} ,11 l t1f<$ ; ( ( (,3


o

E o

o

T

a) co

o

o o

I

1 .32m s Q70m >

0 10 20 30 40 50 60cm

Figure 11. At the left, a drawing of the upper member of a pair of Colonial ore-crushing stones found at Itapalluni

(Chorillos), Province of Puno, Peru. At the right, the maray from San Antonio de los Cobres, Atacama Region, N. W.

Argentina, drawn from the illustrations of Bomans op. cit. (in note 14) F1gS. 103-104. The size and basic form of the stones

are extremely closes representing local varlations of a common prototype.

of the Itapalluni stone. It was this regularity more than any other that suggested a common prototype, of Spanish origin, for all these widely scattered examples; a prototype that may have used a standard cylindrical peg of wood or metal that was convenient to manufacture and/or distribute. I have not seen any metal pegs or clamps on the examples I have studied, nor traces left by their corrosion products (e.g., iron rust or green copper staining). Ambrosetti also speculates about their use.59 On the other hand the holes may have been made on the basis of standard, rule-of-thumb instructions, for they all seem to follow a simple 2:1 ratio of depth to diameter.

That is not to say that the Spanish actually produced these stones or that the indigenous miners had not used similar systems prior to the European invasion. Cer- tainly the thousands of grinding stones described by Fuchs60 in El Trapiche, Parinacochass Department of Apurimaes or the 60-odd stones I saw at Matarani, both Colonial sites, were made by local workmen highly

59. Ibid. 179.

60. Olaechea, op. cit. (in note 45) 9 note 3.

skilled in stone quarrying and dressing. Furthermore, the Late Moche-Early Chimu site of Co. Songoy in the Zana Valley, 9 km. east of Hda. Cayalti, lends strong evidence for the use of the batan system in ore crushing long before the appearance of the Spanish. The SE side of the hill is covered with remains of what appears to have been a workshop where smelting of metal was carried out on a small scale and probably in ceramic pots or crucibles. Numerous small pieces of copper ore (identiEled by x-ray diffraction analysis as chrysocolla) are strewn over the surface as are bits of carbonized fuel, pieces of scoria, and sherds whose inner surfaces are scoriated and often covered with copper mineralization.6l One large batan is also present at the same location as these other materials: it is the lower of two crushing stones (ca. 1 m. x 0.7 m.), its upper surface slightly concave. This is a form typical of pre-Spanish

61. A rim sherd, eolleeted from the surXee of this site, whose inner

seoriated surfaee is eovered with slag, has been identified tentatively

by Carol Maekey, eo-direetor of the Moehe-Chan Chan projeets as

Late Moche - Early Chimu in date I am most grateful to her for her

assistanee in identifying several of the ceramie eolleetions I made dur-

ing the surveys

r )

)) i/)s} 11 S ' . ' ' ( ' !t J


batanes, but its large size and association with the metallurgical site strongly suggest that it was used for preparing the copper ore smelted there. The Spanish variants described above and illustrated in Figures 7-9 and 11 are simply modifications of this basic type.

Of the batanes I have studied in Peru and that I suspect are pre-Columbian, the lower stone is a large slab of rock (always a separate stone, never bedrock), roughly rectangular in shape, whose upper surface has been carefully Elnished so that it is flat and smooth, although eventually it wears and becomes concave. It is usually these lower stones that one Elnds at sites such as Co. Songoy or the Pampa de Tablazo (Chancay Valley) when their association with a nearby mine or with the remains of metallurgical activity suggests their use as ore crushers. I have never seen any with mineral still on or near them, which makes their identiElcation difficult. Such stones are often hauled away and used for other purposes, such as for grinding maize or as door steps, and it is not unusual to Elnd them in localities that have nothing to do with metallurgy. But they are much larger than the batanes ordinarily used in food preparation. The dimensions of three that I suspect are pre- Columbian were 1.0 m. x 0.5 m.; 1.0 m. x 0.7 m.; and 0.96 m. x 0.79 m. Heights are usually 0.4 m. - 0.5 m. Because this rectangular type has persisted and is still in use today, assigning a date to isolated stones is virtually impossible. The Spanish stones are much easier to

* z 5

recognlze.pw

As the Spanish increased the scope of their mining activities and once mercury was introduced (ca. 1571) as the preferred technique for separating gold and silver from their rocky matrices, the variety of processes developed for treating different kinds of ores increased

62. At several of the Ramesside copper mining, ore-processing, and smelting sites surveyed and excavated in the Timna Valley, Beno Rothenberg found large numbers of"saddle-backed," hard, gritty, red sandstone hand grinders for crushing and grinding the local ores. They resemble the pre-Columbian batanes in their roughly rectangular shape and pronounced concave upper surfaces, though they appear smaller than the Andean type. Since none of the published photographs of these stones includes a scale, I cannot be certain of their size, but they appear to be between ca. 0.5 m. and 0.7 m. in length. Beno Rothenberg, Were These King Solomon's Mines? (New York 1972) 63, 66, plates 23, 24. Apart from these examples, I am not familiar with the use in other parts of the ancient world of ore grinding systems such as those common to the Andes. The Greek miners at Laurion also used a combination of hand grinders and rotating mill stones for processing their argentiferous lead ores. But a diagram of the hand grinders, illustrated by Ardaillon as typical of many such stones found at Laurion, shows that the system consisted essentially of a large mortar and pestle. The mortars, made of trachyte, a volcanic rock, were cut in the shape of a sewing thimble, and the ore was crushed by repeated blows of the heavy pestle or rammer as it dropped onto the ore from above. Edouard Ardaillon, Les Mines du Laurion(Paris 1897).

appreciably.63 Aside from the mercury amalgamation process, the one important change the Spanish introduced was the use of water power for ore crushing and grinding. Thus most of the large Colonial processing sites are situated near sources of water, needed not only to drive the wheels that turned the milling stones, but also for washing the crushed and amalgamated metal to separate it from the dressed ore. It is not unusual at such sites to find several varieties of ore- crushing mechanisms. The mills themselves (FIGS. 12-15) were undoubtedly used for the primary and rough crushing operations, but hand grinding was never abandoned for the finer powdering. When gold ores were involved (gold, usually in a quartz matrix), the previously ground ore was introduced, together with mercury, between a pair of hand-powered stones. As the stones ground the two constituents, water was introduced which slowly washed away the gangue, leaving the heavy mercury-metal amalgam in situ. This is the system still in use at La Rinconada San Francisco (FIG. 10).

By the Republican era, another grinding system became popular and is still in use today. The arrastra (from the Spanish arrastrar, to drag) is a water-powered system which, instead of utilizing two milling stones that rotate in a horizontal plane, one above another, employs two large stones of equal size attached at the far ends of a common beam of wood. The stones rest on the flat upper surface of a large, cylindrical bed of stone (FIG. 16). The beam rotates as the water wheel turns it, dragging the two heavy stones around and around on top of the flat bed, crushing the ore introduced between them and the bed. Figure 16 illustrates an abandoned arrastra at La Taona, near Hualgayoc Department of Cajamarca, which was in use in the 1920s. Another, in the same region, was still intact at Punrre where it was built in 1928. There is some evidence that the same kind of system, perhaps powered by hand or by animals, was used by the Spanish as well.64

Smelting No intact pre-Spanish smelter was found during the

course of the survey, although several sites were located where smelting had been carried out, and most of these were coastal sites. The heavy rains in the sierra, together with frequent and often violent earthquakes, have either destroyed or buried most of the early smelting installations. The placing of Andean wind fur-

63. Modesto Bargallo, La Amalgamacion de los Minerales de Plata en Hispanoamerica Colonial (Mexico 1969).

64. At the Colonial site of E1 Cortijo, in the Chao Valley, there were many varieties of grinding stones some of which looked as if they might have been used somewhat as the arrastras were.


Figure 12. A water-powered mill, originally used for crushing silver Figure 13. Detail of a Colonial, water-powered ore-processing mill ores, at the Colonial site of Mawka Paratia, Province of Lampa, Peru. built at the side of a river in the village of Amparaes, Province of The structure is typical in layout and construction of many observed Calca, Peru. The water entered the arched opening under the mill in the high puna of southern Peru. One of the original mill stones lies where the water wheel was originally located (see the same feature in outside the building in the foreground. FIG. 12).

17) where the vertical stone walls that maintain the terraces are best preserved. At the foot of the west slope and slightly higher up that slope lie several long lines of square or rectangular stone structures that appear to be storehouses rather than dwellings. Some of these structures have obvious entries, others have not; some are single units, separated from the others by corridors or alleys, whereas others are connected and appear more like banks of rooms. Two of the single units measured 4.45 m. x 4.20 m. and 4.05 m. x 4.20 m. The wall thickness of the former was 0.58 m. The highest remaining wall of these two stood 1.10 m. from the ground, bllt other nearby and better preserved structures had walls at least twice this height. The floors of these units were not cleared to search for materials that might give a clue about their function, but their size and arrange-

naces on hillsides, where they were situated to take advantage of the strong natural winds, greatly accelerated their rate of burial from landslides and rapid erosion. Many have been lost through land reclamation: several sites where small Colonial smelters were intact only five years ago are now under cultivation, and only vestiges of the scoriated furnace walls can now be seen. At Curamba, an Inca site described below, the villagers of the nearby pueblo are slowly plowing the central plaza and the andenes (terraces) that house the "ovens." Coastal sites are better preserved because they are much drier. On the other hand, those sites located near shifting desert sands are often buried (for example at Ancon, discussed below, and Incaic furnaces said to be situated in Co. Pitura, Jequetepeque Valley, now completely covered with sand). On the coast, however, buried smelting installations may be expected to be reasonably well preserved.

The three smelting sites described here are all late in the course of Andean culture history and in terms of metallurgical development. On the basis of surface evidence alone, they cluster around the end of the Late Intermediate Period and the Late Horizon.

Cerro Landosa This small hill or foothill of the complex known as

Co. Portachuelo to its west is located on the north coast in the Zana River valley, about 32 km. due east of the town of Zana. It is 5 km. SE of Nueva Arica, on the roadl to Nanchoc, and lies at an elevation of 200 m. As one approaches the cerro from the west, its most notable feature is the series of terraces that encircles it and that are most prominent on the western slopes (FIG.

Figure 16. The arrastra, a water-powered system for crushing ores, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


Figure 14. A pair of mill stones, one of several varieties used to crush silver ores at the Colonial ore-processing site of Chiluyo, Province of Puno, Peru.

ment suggested that they may have been used for storage, possibly for the storage of fuel.

About mid-way up the NW slope of the hill there are substantial surface remains of green copper mineral and of charcoal. Just below the surface are quantities of ash, charcoal, and occasional tiny fragments of metal slag. Hand trowelling to depths of about 30 cm. revealed remains of fire-reddened earth throughout the entire NW sector at this level and higher up the hill. The entire cerro is densely covered with sherds, and there is a number of huaquero pits in the NW sector as well as on the crest of the hill.

Approximately seven years before the site visits (made in June and July, 1974), a farmer from a nearby village visited Co. Landosa with a mining engineer who was prospecting for ore. Noticing the bright green mineral on the hillside surface, as well as ash and charcoal, they excavated an area in the NW zone approxi-

Figure 15. Chiluyo. Abandoned Colonial millstones. Such stones are often used, as here, in the construction of walls to form corrals for herds of camelids.

mately 6 m. x 6 m. in size and, about 0.5 m. from the surface, came upon a large quantity of a green-colored copper mineral within a stone-walled enclosure. The farmer described the thickness of the pile of mineral as approximately 0.5 m. They collected most of their find and brought it to his farm where the mineral is still lying in a sheap in his yard. They searched the cerro for the ore source, but no copper outcrops were found.

The actual shape, area, and depth of the original enclosure is difficult to reconstruct because of their prior excavation, but it seems to have been rectangular, with stone walls, and probably was a stone-lined pit rather than a free-standing structure. Inspection of the excavated area revealed many small pieces of copper mineral together with pieces of charcoal. The mineral was all in comminuted form, that is, broken into small pieces as if in preparation for smelting. The bits of mineral near the pit as well as scattered generally over the surface in the NW zone were about 2-3 cm. or smaller in size, whereas the chunks carted off by the farmer were considerably larger, 4-9 cm. X-ray diffraction analysis of a small fragment of mineral collected from the surface of the NW sector where fire-reddening of the ground was marked, proved the mineral to be almost pure malachite with only a small amount of quartz. Another sample, analysed wet chemically, contained 28.3% copper, by weight. On the other hand, petrographic study of a polished section of one of the larger chunks removed by the farmer from the pit revealed an igneous rock containing phenocrysts of felspar and of biotite, a quartz veinlet, some biotite, haematite pseudomorphs after pyrite (no pyrite was present nor any other sulfide minerals), and small quantities of malachite. In other words, the larger chunks are a porphyritic, volcanic rock which has been subjected to

Figure 17. Cerro Landosa from the west. The terraces that contour the hill are prominent. Remains of copper smelting were found in the NW sector. Province of Chiclayo, Peru.


Figure 19. A group of ingots of copper or a copper alloy found at sites in the Lambayeque Valley, Peru. Such ingots might have been made in a mould similar to that illustrated in Fig. 18. They are in the collection of the Museo Arqueologico Briining, Lambayeque.

Figure 18. Cerro Landosa. A fragment of a ceramic mould found on the surface at the NW sector of the hill. The clay is red in color from heat alteration, and the mould cavity is scoriated.

copper mineralization. The copper mineral present is malachite, but in low concentration. Wet chemical analysis of a portion of this same chunk gave 4.98'!37o copper, by weight.

It is clear that the NW sector of Cerro Landosa was utilized for metal smelting with at least one smelter and perhaps many more built upon artificial terraces constructed at that position on the cerro where the strong winds blowing roughly SW-NE could be utilized. The copper ore brought to the site was comminuted, the high-grade malachite separated and smelted while the low-grade country rock, represented by the larger pieces removed from the stone-lined pit, were discarded. Iden- tification of a surface collection of sherds from Cerro Landosa as belonging to a Late Chimu occupation (ca. 1400 A.C.)65 provisionally establi-shes this as a Chimu smelting center. Aside from sherds, a fragment of a ceramic mould, presumably for casting metal ingots, was also found (FIG. 18). The interior of the mould cavity is scoriated, contains tiny areas of green copper mineral, and its shape is similar to that of copper ingots from the Batan Grande area in the Lambayeque Valley (FIG. 19).

Other strong evidence for smelting activity at the site was provided by the accounts of three individuals who had visited it when at least one of the smelters was still partially intact. Each of the accounts was given in- dependently of the others. Ingeniero Julio Rivadeneyra,

65. The sherds were identiEled in Trujillo by Michael E. Moseley, co- director of the Moche-Chan Chan project. I am most grateful for his help and advice.

a mining engineer and geologist from Chiclayo who has spent many years working in the Zana Valley and knows it well, described the precise location of Co. Lan- dosa which he said he had visited 40 years before (i.e., ca. 1934). There he found, on one of his surveys, a furnace charged with malachite and algarrobo (a dense, hardwood common to the north coast) in alternating layers, ready to be fired. He described the furnace as a huayrona, the term commonly used to describe pre- Columbian wind furnaces, and made of stone, but he was not sure about its construction. The structure was partially interred when he saw it. With him was another man who now lives in a small village near Nueva Arica. In conversations with him, he too described the furnace as being in the Co. Dos Cruces (the name of Co. Por- tachuelo in the neighborhood of Co. Landosa) and as having been charged with mineral and wood. During a conversation many months later with the distinguished Peruvian archaeologist, the late Dr. Jorge Muelle, Muelle described a trip he had taken in 1935 with Ing. Rivadeneyra to a site not far from the town of Zana where Rivadeneyra had shown him a metal smelter ("horno de fundicion") charged with mineral and charcoal.66 His impression was that the smelter was dug into the hillside and not constructed of adobe brick or stone, but that possibly a portion of the smelter hidden underground might have been made of stone.

Eight km. sw of Co. Landosa, as the crow flies, are the hills called Cerros Leque Leque. A visit to a modern, abandoned mine in these hills, reached after a 21/2 hour walk from Nueva Arica, revealed the mine shaft and piles of comminuted, green-colored rock. X-

66. See the section on "Fuels" for a discussion of the state of the fuel in a furnace charge.


Figure 20. The main plaza at the site of Curamba, with the Incaic usnu to the east and the promontory on which are located the andenes and their '4ovens," to the south.

ray diffraction analysis of a specimen of this rock proved it to be quartz and malachite with only minor amounts of other minerals. Wet chemical analysis of a sample of these tailings gave 8.25<Yo copper, by weight. Petrographic examination of a polished section showed the rock to be an altered volcanic variety with felspar phenocrysts, biotite, and large quantities of malachite present in fractures throughout the sample. This ore is thus not at all dissimilar to that found in the pit at Co. Landosa; the rock type is very much the same. It seems evident, therefore, that the ore being smelted at Co. Landosa could easily have come from the hills nearby. The mine at Leque Leque is at an altitude of 600 m. Its ore is typical of other such outcrops in the area.67

Curamba

The site of Curamba has been mentioned by various chroniclers since 1534 when Pedro Sancho, secretary to Francisco Pizarro, referred to it as one of the places where Pizarro stopped on his march from Jauja to Cuz- co.68 Situated at the peak of a hill at an altitude of 3,600 m. in the Department of Apurimac, Proyince of An- dahuaylas, District of Huancarama, it lies approximately mid-way between the towns of Abancay and An- dahuaylas and was on the Inca royal road that ran

67. Samples of charcoal collected at the smelting site have not yet been identified as to genus and species. Two varieties were submitted for analysis to the Forest Products Laboratory of the U. S. Depart- ment of Agriculture Forest Service. Both varieties are hardwoods. The EIne-textured sample is probably a shrub, the coarser-textured one may be another legume. R. C. Koeppen, personal communication, October 1975.

68. Pedro Sancho, An Account of the Conquest of Peru, Philip A. Means, trans. and ed. (New York 1917); Pedro Pizarro, Relacion del Descubramiento y Conquista de los Reanos del Peru in Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles (Madrid 1965) T. 5.

north to the coast. According to von Hagen69 it may also have been the point of departure of the road leading from the highlands to Nazca and the coastal road to the south. Cieza de Leon describes Curamba as a town belonging to the Chanca who inhabited the area now considered the Province of Andahuaylas and who fought vigorously against Inca domination.70 On a march toward the town of Andahuaylas, Pachacuti Inca seized Curamba from the Chanca and ordered a Temple to the Sun erected at the site.7' That is the stepped pyramid or usnu (FIG. 20) located in the main plaza which remains as the most prominent feature of Curam- ba and has been described by the 1 9th century naturalists and geologists who visited there72 and more recently by an occasional archaeologist.73 The site has not been studied archaeologically.

For the purposes of this study, Curamba is especially important because it is believed to have been a center of

69. Victor von Hagen, The Incas of Pedro de Cieza de Leon (Norman, Oklahoma 1959).

70. Pedro de Cieza de Leon, La Cronica del Peru, Primera Parte (Madrid 1962) i. 90.

71. Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales de los Ineas (Madrid 1963) iv. 15; Pedro de Cieza de Leon, La Cronica del Peru, Segundo Parte (Lima 1967) ii. 47.

72. Antonio Raimondi, Historia de la Geografia del Peru, V. 2 of El Peru' (Lima 1876); Charles Wiener, Perou et Bolivie (Paris 1880); E. W. Middendorf, Das HochZand von Peru, V. 3 of Peru (Berlin 1895).

73. Joel Grossman visited Curamba briefly in 1971 and drew a rough sketch map of the main plaza with some of its architectural remains, including the usnu, but did not look for the furnaces. In 1973, Fidel Ramos, the field archaeologist in charge of the site survey of the Department of Apurimac under the aegis of the Centro Regional (Cuzco) de Investigacion y de Restauracion de Bienes Monumentales, visited Curamba on his survey and also sketched portions of the central plaza. He did not investigate the terraces to the south. Dr. Ramos and I studied the site together during the course of my survey in September, 1974.


metallurgical activity, probably for the smelting of silver ores, practiced on a near industrial scale during the Inca occupation of the site.74 Today the evidence for some kind of pyrotechnological activity at Curamba consists primarily of the remains of a hundred or more highly localized, heat-altered areas on the flat surfaces of three artificial terraces that contour the slopes of the hill which rises to the south of the main plaza, dominating the site (FIG. 20). Walking the length of each terrace, one passes in rapid succession strip after strip of fire-reddened earth, each area lying parallel to the next and all oriented with their main axis perpendicular to the vertical face of the terrace (FIG. 21). It is clear that these reddened areas resulted from the use of E1res limited to the precise locations of the heat-altered strips, but no traces of whatever superstructures might once have been associated with these strips are preserved.

It is interesting that the association of the site of Curamba with metal smelting originates in the literature not with the chroniclers (although Cieza, P. Sancho, P. Pizarro, and Garcilaso de la Vega all mention the site and/or its stepped pyramid), but rather with the observations of Wiener and Valdizan (recorded by Olaechea) in the l9th century and, more recently, with those of von Hagen.75 On the other hand, Raimon- di and Middendorf make no reference to any ovens or furnaces at the site, though both describe the usnu.76

The silence of the silver- and gold-hungry Spanish about ". . . a major Inca center for the smelting of silver, copper, and gold"77 is curious, since they rarely hide their avarice and delight at a rich F1nd of Incaic precious metal. There may, however, be some reasonable explanation for their lack of comment.

Wiener categorically states that there were ancient metal-smelting furnaces at Curamba. It is not clear, however, if he actually saw them when he was there, for he claims that his attention was called to the ". . . beaucoup de hornos de fundicion (hauts four- naux) . . .",78 but he does not go on to describe them. He does mention their location, however, and has placed them on his plan of the site on the hillside to the south that dominates the high plateau or plaza (the

74. Olaechea, op. cit. (in note 45); von Hagen, op. cit. (in note 69); Petersen, op. cit. (in note 45); Warwick Bray, "Ancient American Metal-Smiths," Proc. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and relandfor 1971 ( 1972) 25-45.

75. Wiener, op. cit. (in note 72); Olaechea, op. cit. (in note 45); von Hagen, ibid.

76. Raimondi, op. cit. (in note 72); Middendorf, op. cit. (in note 72).

77. von Hagen, op. cit. (in note 69) 133, note 3.

78. Wiener, op. cit. (in note 72) 279.

Figure 21. Curamba. Andenes on the SW side of the hill shown in Fig. 20. Note several partly excavated (by local farmers), reddened, stone- lined areas on the middle terrace.

location of the hornos on his sketch map is correct; his determination of true north on that map is incorrect, however). Writing in French, he carefully cites the Spanish term for these features, "hornos de fundicion,'' and then, parenthetically, describes them as "hauts four- naux,'' blast furnaces. He goes on to say, however, that he is of the opinion, reinforced by what Peruvian archaeologists say, that the furnaces are the remains of European (i.e. Spanish) installations.

It appears, then, that some sort of ovens or furnaces lined the hillsides where the reddened, fire-altered areas are now found. Wiener either saw them or heard about them and considered them important enough to locate on his sketch map. His reference to the opinion of Peru- vian archaeologists about the date of these structures indicates that they were visible, if not to him then in the recent past, and were evaluated as Colonial smelting furnaces.

Von Hagen's statement about the installations on the terraces is also ambiguous. He describes them as wind furnaces, i'. . . oval-shaped . . . eight feet in diameter with walls two feet thick; the mouths of the tunnels face northeast in the direction of the winds from the Amazon."79 From these remarks it appears that von Hagen actually saw and measured the structures, which means they were reasonably intact in the l950s (?). Why then is there no mention in the chronicles of such large structures that quite obviously must have been visible in their prominent position overlooking the central plaza? Perhaps they were not visible because they were constructed entirely underground, within, not above the terraces. This is the picture afforded by Olaechea and, to a certain degree, by the results of the site survey.

79. von Hagen, op. cit. (in note 69) 133, note 3.

Journal of Faeld Archaeology/Vol. 3, 1976 29

In 1888, Sr. Ing. Dario Valdizan visited Curamba, saw the "furnaces" and measured them. Olaechea80 published Valdizan's findings together with a plan and elevation of a portion of the three terraces where the "furnaces" were located. According to these drawings, there were two kinds of installation, found side by side, on each terrace. One was rectangular in shape, long and narrow, ca. 3 m. x 0.7 m., and 0.3 m. in depth; the other was of similar dimensions but ended in an oval, domed space, open st the top, giving the whole a keyhole shape when seen in plan. One end of each structure ter- minated at the vertical face of the terrace where air was free to enter the structure. The drawings indicate that both types of structure lay entirely beneath the surface of the terrace in which they were located, i.e. the structures were constructed underground. Their general size and form, however, match reasonably the description given by von Hagen. Perhaps their subterranean location explains why they were so rarely mentioned by the Spanish invaders and were missed by Raimondi and Middendorf: they simply were not visible. Olaechea was convinced that these installations were Incaic furnaces for the winning of silver from its ores; von Hagen agrees. Wiener suggested that they were Colonial installations, but no other writer mentions this possibility, and the site survey revealed no evidence of a Spanish presence at Curamba.

The southern limit of the main plaza at Curamba is formed by the northern promontory of a large, oval- shaped hill whose long axis runs in a roughly N-S direction (FIG. 20).81 The terraces in question begin on the north face of this promontory and continue around it to the west, flanking the entire western and southwestern side of the hill (FIG. 21). There are three such terraces, on all of which are the remains of fire- reddened installations, and the survey indicated that other similar features exist beyond the main plaza on some smaller terraces to the east. Whatever the pyrotechnological activity at Curamba, it was conducted on a grand scale.

The surface features of the terraced hill that are still observable, some of which were clarified with small test pits or clearing operations, are as follows.

1. The summit of the promontory itself is flat and comprises a small, rectangular plaza bordered all around by a stone wall and, on its north and west sides, by stone buildings that may be dwellings or storage units. These buildings continue beyond the plaza to the

80. Olaechea, op. cit. (in note 45).

81. A site map and an aerial photograph of Curamba, showing the various features described here and their relationships to each other, will be published in a subsequent article being prepared by Fidel Ramos and me.

Figure 22. Curamba. Detail of a stone-lined, fire-reddened, rectangular channel excavated by the author and Dr. Fidel Ramos on the terrace shown in Fig. 21. The distal end of the channel is shown. The excavation was continued further into the terrace, beyond the channel end, where strata of small chunks of gravel can be seen in the clay bed.

south. The plaza is covered with sherds, some of which are Inca contemporary. No Colonial sherds were identified.

2. The hilltop is a limestone outcrop. Its soil is slightly sandy and supports a ground cover of ichu. Qeuna trees grow here and there on the hillsides.

3. The terraces themselves are partly cut into the hillside but have been built up and filled in with a dense, compact clay which is not natural to the hill and was brought in from elsewhere, possibly for the good thermal properties it would exhibit under the severe heating conditions to which the terraces were subjected. During the clearing of one of the fire-reddened zones, a local farmer who was cultivating portions of the main plaza and of the terraces on the promontory remarked about the clay, explaining that it was "not from here." Each terrace has a vertical retaining wall of stone, 1.0- 1.8 m. high; the andenes range in width from 8.6 to 13.4 m. Their surfaces are covered with small pieces of scoria formed from the vitrification of earth or clay.

4. The long, narrow, fire-reddened zones are the remains of channels, roughly rectangular in section, which were apparently open at the top for at least half their total length; i.e., they were rectangular pits open at the surface, beginning at the vertical face of the terrace and extending for a distance of about 3 m. into the terrace. These channels are lined with limestone (FIG. 22) which is covered with a thick layer (ca. 7 cm.) of mud plaster that protected the stone from severe heat alteration. The mud plaster is baked bright red and is hard but usually not scoriated (although the one channel we cleaned had already been partly excavated by a local farmer, and many pieces of scoriated earth were found

30 A Metallurgical Site Survey in the Petuvian Andes/Lechtman

because of the strength of the winds blowing against the sw slope of the hill. It is clear from the force and direction of the winds that the installations were built to take advantage of the excellent wind conditions of the site.

7. No metallurgical slags, ash, or remains of mineral or of ore were found associated with any of the terraces or fire-altered zones. The scoria strewn about the terraces appeared to be the remains of earth or clay heated to its melting point. A sample of this material analysed by emission spectroscopy showed no signs of any metal constituents except at extremely low trace levels of concentration.

8. Many sherds covered the surface of the terraces. Most could not be identified.82 Several were Inca contemporary. None appeared to be Colonial.

On the basis of this list, some tentative speculations can be made about the pyrotechnological activities at Curamba. Given the lack of any readily identiElable Colonial sherds or Colonial architecture at the site, it is most likely that the terraces and their fire-altered installations are Incaic or pre-Incaic. At the moment, apart from the claims of Wiener, Olaechea, and von Hagen, the survey has provided no evidence that would support the interpretation of the installations as hornos de fundicion. The complete absence on the surface of any mineral or ore, of metallurgical slags, of ash, and of a heavily scoriated lining of the one "wind tunnels' or channel that was excavated raises serious doubts about the practice of any high-temperature metallurgical activity on the hillside. The construction of an open pit- like channel as a wind tunnel which leads to a subterranean, domed space open at the top (as represented by Olaechea) is also unusual, though not unique.83 The presence inside the channels of maize cobs with their kernels still in situ also seems unusual if the maize is

82. Joel Grossman, who has excavated the site of Waywaka near the town of Andahuaylas and is one of the few archaeologists familiar with pottery from the general area, was kind enough to look at the sherds from Curamba. Aside from local Inca utility wares and some Inca Cuzco-style sherds (also identified as such by John Rowe), Grossman felt that the majority of the other pottery was Late Intermediate on the basis of features it had in common with pottery from that period at Waywaka. Personal communications; Joel Grossman, "An Ancient Gold-Worker's Tool Kit," Archaeology 25 (1972) 270-275.

83. Radomir Pleiner has published several medieval steel-smelting furnaces in Czechoslovakia that share some of the features of the Curamba installations as they are described by Olaechea, namely long, open channels that lead to the domed portion of the furnace. Pleiner's furnaces are blast furnaces, and the domes are completely above ground. Radomir Pleiner, "Experimental Smelting of Steel in Early Medieval Furnaces," PamatkyArcheologicke60(1969)458-487; idem, "Stredoveka Vyroba Smoly v Krasne Doline u Rakovnika," (Die Technologie der Mittelalterlichen Teerbrennerei in Krasna Dolina bei Rakovnik, Bohmen), Pamatky Archeologicke 61 (1970) 472-518.

Figure 23. Curamba. Fragment of a carbonized maize cob, with the kernels still in situ, found inside a Elre channel on the lowest of the terraces shown in Fig. 21.

inside it). Near the distal end of the cleaned channel there was a 10 cm. thick accumulation of burned earth

hard, reddened, and loosely compacted strewn on the terrace surface in a roughly circular configurations ca. 1 m. in diameter. The source of this burned material was not clear. It may originally have formed part of a shallow dome that covered the distal end of the channel, or it could be the remains of a once much larger pile of matter that was being slowly heated or roasted above the channel itself.

The channels are aligned parallel to one another and are separated by distances varying from 0.9 m. to 1.6 m. Their lengths vary, but they are almost identical in width (0.38 m.).

5. The lowest of the three terracess at the base of the hill on the west side, was partly destroyed when the recent construction of a small road eliminated its stone retaining wall and ca. 1-2 m. of width. The present vertical face of the terrace is, thus, a cut through the channels about mid-way along their Iengths. Within one of these channels we fou-nd a large piece of maize cobs completely carbonized, with all its kernels present (FIG. 23). One of the farmers from Ccallaspuquio, the pueblo to the north at the base of the hill on which Curamba is located, explained that after the road was put in, these exposed channels were found to contain carbonized maize cobs. In a small excavation Dr. Fidel Ramos and I made inside one channel on a terrace higher up, we found two kernels of maize, completely carbonizeds and some tiny pieces of wood charcoal.

6. The wind at Curamba is extremely strong and variable, blowing with great force from the sw but also at times from the NE, as von Hagen observed. We had occasionally to cease our clearing and excavating


considered as a fuel. One would have expected the kernels to be removed and only the cobs used to feed the Elre. The use of maize as fuel in and of itself is not extraordinary, however. It would certainly provide a sufElciently hot Elre for roasting purposes or for the initial heating of an oven or furnace before a second, longer- and slower-burning fuel were introduced. The qeuna tree that grows on the terraced hillsides might have provided such a fuel and is used today for mak- ing charcoal. In fact, the terraced hill is called Qeunachayoq, the place where qeuna grows, by the resi- dents of Ccallaspuquio. Only the special role played by maize in ancient Andean culture84 would argue against its use as a fuel, not its properties as a combustible material.

On the other hand, several factors must be kept in mind. The drawings of Olaechea indicate two types of structure, one long and narrow, the other keyhole shaped. He argued that one type of installation was for roasting ore, the other for subsequent smelting. The installation cleared during the survey was clearly of the simple, rectangular type, and the rather moderate heating of its walls may have resulted from just such a roasting procedure though it could have been used for roasting maize as well as for roasting ore! The presence of pieces of ceramic scoria all over the surface of the terraces does indicate that the fires were hot enough to melt the clay used in the construction of the installations, perhaps reaching a temperature of about 1100° C. The absence of any surface slag is also not unusual for Peru. I visited many Colonial sites both on the coast and in the highlands where I knew that smelting of ores had taken place and found no remains of ore or of metal slag. This is often the case because such slags have been claimed as mining "sites" and have been removed and re-smelted for the metal they contained.85 Curamba is remote and difElcult of access and it is unlikely its metal slags were removed, but this is a possibility that cannot be discounted.

The one impressive aspect of Curamba that keeps the "furnace theory" alive is the deliberate construction of the terraces to house installations that are clearly designed to utilize the strong natural draughts resulting from the Elerce winds that buffet the hillsides. It is not surprising that P. Sancho referred to Curamba as

84. John V. Murra, "Rite and Crop in the Inca State," in Culture in History, Stanley Diamond, ed. (New York 1960) 393-407.

85. Jorge Flores notes that the once-abundant slags at the Colonial silver ore-processing site of Mawka Paratia were removed to the Limon Verde plant near Santa Lucia to recover the metal they contained. Jorge Flores Ochoa, "Los Pastores de Paratia," Anales del Instituto de Estudios Socio-Economicos, Universidad Tecnica del Altiplano, Puno 1 ( 1967) 9- 106.

Airamba,86 meaning pampa of the winds or windy pampa. Building those terraces with clay brought from elsewhere was a monumental undertaking, one that was accomplished for some quite special activity. All the descriptions of the chroniclers of hillsides covered with furnaces are actually descriptions of portable huairas used primarily for smelting silver, a type of furnace probably introduced by the Spanish once the production of silver became one of their primary occupations. In fact, almost all the early descriptions we have are of the huairas used to smelt silver ores at Potosi in Bolivia. Nevertheless, wind furnaces for winning metal were almost surely an indigenous Andean development, as the data from Co. Landosa strongly suggest, and the installations at Curamba may represent a particular type or types of stationary smelter or perhaps of refining furnace. Ores are abundant within an 18 km. radius of Curamba, although they tend to be copper rather than silver ores.87

We can draw no firm conclusion about the presence or absence of metallurgical activity at Curamba without careful excavation of the site. I have dwelt at some length here on the various aspects of the problem for several reasons. First, the installations are stationary and numerous. If they prove to be related to metallurgy they will constitute our first evidence of large-scale smelting or refining in non-portable furnaces that are not only pre-Columbian but are probably the products of Inca technology, the technology of Empire. Second, as Bargallo has pointed out,88 all of the references we have to possible Andean, as distinct from Spanish,

86. In Sancho, op. cit. (in note 68) 182, Means discusses the chronicler's use of the name Airamba, although von Hagen, op. cit. (in note 69) 133, note 3 cites Sancho as having called the site Airabamba.

87. Since no remains of mineral were found at the site during the survey, one can only speculate about the kinds of ores in the vicinity of Curamba that might have been treated there. Olaechea, who conducted a mining survey of the Department of Apurimac, claims that in the Province of Abancay the predominant ores are silver ores, particularly tetrahedrite and silver-rich lead ores, but he adds that none of these minerals was being exploited at the time he wrote. Teodorico Olaechea, "Apuntes Sobre el Departamento de Apurimac," Anales de la Escuela de Contrucciones Civiles y de Minas del Peru 6 ( 1887) 1-57. Several of the maps listed in note 20 above indicated four working mines within a 22 km. radius (as the crow flies) of Curamba; three are copper mines and one is a Pb-Zn-Ag-Cu mine. The latter is located just to the west of the town of Abancay, a one-day journey on foot from Curamba. In the records of the Oficina Regional de Mineria, Departamento de Cuzco, all claims to mines or mineral resources are registered for the Department of Apurimac between the years 1950 and the present. In the District of Huancarama, in which Curamba is located, only 16 claims were made in 24 years: 10 are listed as copper mineral; 3 as copper and silver; I as copper and gold; 1 as copper, silver, and gold; 1 as lead.

88. Bargallo, op. cit. (in note 14).

32 A Metallurgical Site Survey in the Peruvian A ndes/Lechtman

smelting practices are from the region near Potosi in Bolivia, the great Colonial silver mining center. But what of Andean smelting in other areas? Third, it is also entirely possible that the so-called smelting furnaces at Curamba may prove as embarrassing as did those at Chan Chan89 in the sense that a long and well established tradition that explains the original function of the structures as metallurgical in nature may simply be incorrect. Only excavations will tell.

A ncon

The site of Ancon, ca. 25 km. north of Lima, is one of the best studied of any Peruvian coastal site.90 Ex- cavations have revealed a long sequence of occupations from pre-ceramic times through the Late Horizon, but Inca influence there appears to have been slight.9' Although metal objects have been found at Ancon, both in early and late Middle Horizon graves,92 Ancon has not been noted for its metallurgy, displaying neither a rich abundance of metal artifacts nor any indication of metal manufacturing processes.

Uhle, in describing his excavations in area P of the Ancon necropolis, states that copper implements (Gerate) were found everywhere (i.e., in many of the graves), and several graves contained gold beads or other objects made of gold.93 The graves in area P belong to all four periods at Ancon, which are as 89. Lechtman and Moseley, op. cit. (in note 1).

90. W. Reiss and A. Sttibel, Das Totenfeld von Ancon in Peru (Berlin 1880-1887); Max Uhle, "Die MuschelhEigel von Ancon, Peru," Inter- national Congress of A mericanists, Proceedings of 18th Session ( 1912) 22-45; William D. Strong, The Uhle Pottery Collections from Ancon, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 21 (Berkeley 1925) 135-190; William D. Strong, Gordon R. Willey, John M. Corbett, Archaeological Studies in Peru, 1941-1942, Columbia Studies in Archaeology and Ethnology I (New York 1943); Gordon R. Willey, "A Supplement to the Pottery Sequence at An- con," in Archaeological Studies in Peru, 1941-1942, pp. 201-215; Rebecca Carrion Cachot, "La Cultura Chavin - Dos Nuevas Colonias: Kuntur Wasi y Ancon," Revista del Museo Nacional, Lima 2 (1948) 99- 172; Gordon R. Willey and John M . Corbett, Early A ncon and Early Supe Culture, Columbia Studies in Archaeology and Ethnology 3 (New York 1954); Edward P. Lanning, "An Early Ceramic Style from Ancon, Central Coast of Peru," Nawpa Pacha I (1963) 47-60; idem, "A Pre-Agricultural Occupation on the Central Coast of Peru," AmAnt 28 (1963) 360-371; Thomas C. Patterson, Pattern and Process in the Early Intermediate Period Pottery of the Central Coast of Peru, University of California Publications in Anthropology 3 (Berkeley 1966); Thomas C. Patterson and M. Edward Moseley, "Late Preceramic and Early Ceramic Cultures of the Central Coast of Peru," Nawpa Pacha 6 (1968) 115-133.

91. Strong, ibid. 186.

92. Uhle, op. cit. (in note 90); Willey, op. cit. (in note 90); William C. Root, "Analyses of Metallic Content of Archaeological Objects in Various Museums," mimeographed tables of spectrographic analyses (unpublished).

93. Uhle, op. cit. (in note 90) 34.

follows: Middle Ancon I: toward the beginning of the Middle Horizon, with strong Tiahuanacoid influence; Middle Ancon II: late Middle Horizon; Late Ancon I: between late Middle Horizon and early Late Intermedi- ate Period; Late Ancon II: Late Intermediate Period to Late Horizon. Neither Uhle's report nor Strong's94 later reevaluation of Uhle's Ancon material, however, describes the objects or their grave associations. William C. Root analysed 23 metal objects excavated by Uhle and presently in the Uhle Collection of the Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.95 These analyses are presented in Table 5. Fourteen of the 23 were from area P; 12 are listed as coming from Middle Ancon I graves, 1 from a Late Ancon I grave, and 1 from a Late Ancon II grave. The Middle I objects are made of copper (e.g., a fish hook, a knife, a cast clubhead, a disc); from silver (a plume); from a silver-copper alloy which was evidently treated to leave the surfaces of the object silver in color (several plumes, a topo); and from a gold-silver- copper alloy, probably a natural electrum, that appears gold in color (several plates from false, gold mummy heads). The single Late I object from area P, a fragment of a band, is of silver, and the Late II object is a copper knife. Five of the objects Root analysed belong to Mid- dle II graves from areas M and T. Copper, the copper- silver alloy, and the natural electrum continued to be used. Two objects from the Late I period are of silver and of silver-copper alloy, and all three Late II objects are of copper.

Strong, Willey, and Corbett96 excavated 20 late Mid- dle Horizon graves in the vicinity of areas B and H of the Ancon necropolis. Their material falls between Middle Ancon II and Late Ancon I. Metal objects are reported by Willey from six of these graves. Except for "two small fragments of what might be gold or a gold- copper alloy"97 all the other items are described as fragments of sheet copper. Schmidt98 illustrates objects, said to be from Ancon, in private collections. They are

94. Strong, op. cit. (in note 90).

95. After William Root's death in 1969, Pauline Root, his wife, was kind enough to present me with many of his books including his notebooks in which are recorded details of his emission spectrographic analyses of pre-Columbian metal objects (Root, note 92). Included with this material is a list of analyses of metal objects excavated at the necropolis of Ancon by Max Uhle (Uhle, note 90) and presently in the collections of the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Table 5 presents the results of his study of the Ancon material.

96. Strong, Willey, and Corbett, op. cit. (in note 90).

97. Willey, op. cit. (in note 90) 209.

98. Max Schmidt, Kunst und Kultur von Peru (Berlin 1929) plates 367, 368, 380, 385, 394, 397.

*The analyses reported here were performed by William C. Root (see note 95). The determinations were made by wet chemical and spectrographic analysis. Root recalculated the percentages of Au, Ag, and Cu on the basis of 100% metal. He analysed the samples (from Ancon and many others sites in Peru) for Au, Ag, Cu, Sn, Pb, As, Sb, Bi, Zn, Cd, Hg. In no case was any Sb, Bi, Cd, or Hg found, and in only one case was Zn detected. Root, therefore, omitted these latter elements from his tables.

All the Ancon objects currently form part of the Uhle Collection at the Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Further information about the objects and findspots are given in Strong (see note 90).

Journal of Field Archaeology/Vol. 3 1976 33

Table 5. Analyses of metal objects excavated at Ancon by Max Uhle.*

Root Analysis No.

Analysis [%, by weight]

Au Ag Cu Sn Pb As Excavation No. Period

Middle I Middle I Middle I

Middle I Middle I Middle I Middle I Middle I Middle I Middle I Middle I Middle I

Middle II Middle II Middle II Middle II Middle II

Object

Small disc on cloth Plume Plate from false

head of mummy

Plume (?) Plume (?) Fish hook 1 opo

Knife Club head Disc Pendant

1117 1118 1119

P12-6003 P 1 2-6004b P 1 4-6022a

T L L

T T

2 25 10

L 10

L L L 7

61

65 o

o

o

34 33 75 90

T 90

T T T 17

76 20 15

o

80 32

T

1120 1 121 1122 1123 1124 1128 1129 1130 1 131

P 1 4-6022b P 1 4-6023a P 14-6023b P14-6025 P24-6174 P19-6304 P2 1-6306 P21-6312 P -6323

1110

llll

1112 1113 1114

M4 -5635 T 14-567 1 T7 -5721 d T 1 3-5745 T 1 3-5749

Armlet Hollow bead Fragment of plate Fragment of sheet Armlet

80 5 L L

Fragment of sheet Fragments of band

Armlet Armlet Knife Headband

T 6

2 5

63L 89

T o

60

L 5

L L

98 35

5

_ _ 1109

1127

B 103-5599c Late 1 P1 -6281 Late I

H2 -5838a H2 -5838b P -6236 C 102-627 1 b

Late II Late II Late II Late II

T T T

1115 1116 1125 1126

-

Legend: L 20% or more S 1-20% T 0.01-1% X 0.0001-0.001%

copper or silver in color and are preponderantly Late Intermediate or Late Horizon in form. The vast majority show a strong influence from the south coast; many of the styles and motifs are similar to Late Ica99 ceramic and metal objects.'°°

Thus evidence for the use of metal objects at Ancon

100. Baessler illustrates a number of diverse objects from Ancon:

Tafel 13 15

19

20 22

No.

184 23 1, 237 313, 315 326 343

Tafel 27 30 32 39

No.

401 461 487 568

99. Root, 1949, op. cit. (in note 1). Arthur Baessler, Altperuanische Metallgerate (Berlin 1906). Marshall

O I t X 4 s z r e 9 tvo

\ 1 I J I I \ i


Figure 24. Fragments of two lead cakes from Ancon. The bottom of

the cakes is shown.

\\\\\mS Figure 25. Ancon. Reconstruction of the lead cake illustrated at the

right in Figure 24.

begins with the Middle Horizon and continues through the Inca occupation of the site. The objects are few and undistinguished but do show a repertory of metals and alloys including gold, silver, copper, silver-copper and possibly gold-copper, and electrum. It was surprising, therefore, when a number of sacks full of metal slags of various types was found in the archaeological storehouse at Ancon. These were described as having come from excavations in the area behind the Urbanizacion Miramar, on the pampa to the east of the Panamerican Highway and to the south of the necropolis.'°' The con- tents of only two sacks were examined, revealing

presents his metallographic examination of two silver-colored

fragments of sheet metal from Ancon whose composition he estimates

as Au: 50%, Ag: 50%, by weight. George Marshall, "Notes on the Ex-

amination of Some Pre Colum-bian Metal Samples," Arqueologicas 7.

101. I am most grateful to Dr. Hugo Ludena who told me of the ex-

istence of the metallurgical slags at Ancon and who accompanied me

to the site. According to the guardian at the storehouse, these

metallurgical materials were found by Julio C. Tello who excavated

the area behind the Urb. Miramar in 1943 or 1944; the guardian

assisted in the excavations. He described a rather small area cleared

by Tello where hornos (smelting furnaces), crucibles, batanes (large

grinding stones), slag, and an abundance of ash were uncovered at a

depth of ca. 2.5 m. - 3 m. He claims that Tello later re-covered the

area with sand*. The site, which was visited during the survey, is pocked

with huaquero pits and there is evidence of earlier archaeological

excavations. Because we can reconstruct so little of the circumstances

of the discovery of these materials or their context, the discussion here

of their significance in Andean metallurgy in general must remain

speculative.

I u 10

: i:

-<; 20 1 Figure 26. Ancon. A polished cross section of a scoriated ;'sherd"

(MIT No. 703) with a blue, slag-like accretion on the surface at the

left. The three zones indicated correspond to 1) the slag, 2) the in-

termediate zone represented by the scoriated surface of the sherd in

contact with the slag, 3) the unaltered sherd with many small, rocky .

lnc uslons.

primarily two kinds of artifacts: (1) heavy, circular, lead-rich cakes, slightly concave in section and thicker in the middle than at the rim (see FIGS. 24, 25); and (2) fragments of ceramic sherds whose inner surfaces are coated with thick accumulations of what appear to be bright green or blue mineral products of copper. 102

Laboratory examination of the slags is underway, but some preliminary results are worth noting.

A. A sherd (MIT No. 703) whose inner surface is heavily encrusted with a bright blue slag-like material was studied both petrographically and by x-ray diffraction. In addition, wet chemical and quantitative spectrographic analyses were made of a portion of the blue material removed from the sherd (TABLE 6). Three contiguous zones are evident in the polished section of the sherd (FIG. 26): the sherd itself, Zone 1; a zone representing the original inner surface of the sherd, now scoriated, Zone 2; and the thick blue accretion, Zone 3.

The ceramic of Zone 1 is highly porous and coarse

102. Only one decorated pottery sherd was found mixed-in among

these metallurgical materials, but it had no adherent metal, slag, or

other smelting byproducts. Its association with the metallurgical finds

is thus a tentative one, at best. The paste is a light orange-tan color,

and the outer surface of the sherd is decorated with geometric designs

in the form of cross-hatched triangles painted in black with vestiges of

painted red background areas. The sherd closely resembles certain

Early Intermediate Period pottery styles found by Lanning at the

Miramar site at Ancon. Lanning, "An Early Ceramic Style from An-

con," 1963 op. cit. (in note 90) plate X, fig. 4; plate XI, fig. 13 a, 14 a.

Table 6. Analyses of samples of the blue, slag-like material adhering to a sherd from Ancon (FIG. 26).

Sample No. Composition [%, by weight] Wet Chemical Analysis Spectrographic Analysis

Cu Fe Pb S Si Zn Ag A1 As Ca Ge Mg Mn P Sb Sr Ti 703 3.66 2.75 43.5 2.05 2.81 3.41 0.26 L 0.44 L FT L T T 0.82 FT FT-T

Legend: FT 0.001-0.01% T 0.01-0.1% L 0.1-1.0%


and is full of quartz pebbles. These quartz grains are visible in the black, scoriated Zone 2 indicating that the inner surface of the sherd was raised to a temperature high enough to melt some but not all of its mineral constituents. Interspersed throughout Zone 2 are spherical globules of various types. One variety is bright white to gray-white in reflected light and is often associated with a bright blue phase. This bright blue mineral has been identified as covellite (CuS); the white phase has not yet been identified. Zone 2 also contains many spherical globules of pure covellite and occasionally bits of covellite that appear never to have melted. The polished section also revealed some covellite in the thick blue slag of Zone 3. X-ray diffraction analysis of a sample removed from Zone 3 has shown it to be a highly complex mixture of many minerals including covellite and silicates of copper, but the diffraction patterns have not yet been resolved. It is clear, however, that Zone 3 represents a mixture of various materials that were once molten inside or adjacent to the ceramic vessel and solidified there. The fact that covellite and other minerals are present as spherules in Zones 2 and 3 indicates that copper sulfide minerals were melted at some stage and solidified in contact with the sherd. The slag-like nature of Zone 3 is in keeping with the silica and high lead content indicated by the analyses, although the material itself is not in a highly vitrified state. A second sherd (MIT No. 704), similar to the Elrst but much thinner and curved in section, was also sec- tioned, polished, and examined. It showed the same three contiguous zones and almost the same spectrographic pattern of elements in the accretionary material clinging to its inner, concave surface. The middle, scoriated zone contains a large number of spherical globules of covellite, many more than in sherd No. 703. One inclusion of galena (PbS) was also noted in this zone. The inner, concave surface of the sherd contained bits of charcoal mixed with the other accretionary material.

Although at this point the interpretation of these data can only be partial and subject to change, the evidence strongly implies that copper sulfide ores or copper ores with a high percentage of copper sulElde were being

smelted in some sort of ceramic vessels at Ancon. 103 The use of ollas or pots as crucibles for smelting or roasting ores was not uncommon in the Andes. Both Barba and Cobo mention such practice.l04 On the other hand, the sherd illustrated in Figure 26 is flat and appears to be part of a flat-bottomed or straight-walled vessel, perhaps a type used especially for smelting. It may also be nothing more than a flat tile onto which the slaggy detritus from a smelting or refining operation was deposited. The more striking result of these preliminary analyses is that a technology sophisticated enough to smelt sulfide ores of copper apparently had been developed in the Andes prior to the coming of the Spanish and probably before the formation of the Inca state.

It should be noted that Caley and Easbyl05 chemically analysed a copper ingot from the south coast of Peru and argued on the basis of its sulphur content that it represented metal won from a complex sulfide ore. Clair Patterson 106 has argued strongly against such chemical evidence as an indication of sulfide smelting. Petrographic and metallographic study of slags, ingots, and other metallurgical remains is obviously crucial to the understanding and reconstruction of any metallurgical system. Neither Caley and Easby nor Patterson used these techniques, but the evidence from Ancon strongly suggests that Caley and Easby's evaluation of pre- Columbian technology was substantially correct, that is, that suflide ores were being smelted in the Andes prior to the Spanish invasion.

B. The lead-rich cakes, of which there were numerous fragments in the Ancon storehouse, have proved

103. Another possible interpretation is that the slag-like material clinging to the surfaces of these sherds is the product of an ore- refining operation in which silver ores containing some copper, zinc, lead, and arsenic were purified. In that case, lead or lead sulfide might have been added to flux the ore and collect impurities such as those present in rather high concentration as indicated by the analyses. The slag accretions on these sherds might be the first products of a series of purification steps.

104. Barba, op. cit. (in note 2) iv. 4; Cobo, op. cit. (in note 18) iii. 41.

105. Caley and Easby, op. cit. (in note 1).

106. Patterson, op. cit. (in note 11).


equally interesting. Figure 24 illustrates two represen- tative fragments of these cakes; Figure 25 provides a- section through the cake at the right and reconstructs its original size and shape. The bottoms of all the cakes are slightly convex indicating that they solidified within a concave receptacle. Such a container may have been no more than a round cavity dug into the ground, but the pronounced break in contour between the rim and body of the cake in Figure 25 suggests that it formed inside a carefully pre-shaped container. All the cakes share certain features: their upper surfaces are usually gray in color and contain many small inclusions of charcoal, spherules of soft, gray metal, and patches of white powdery accretions mixed with green copper mineral; the bottom surfaces are an overall gray or brown-gray color with large areas of bright yellow or yellow-green. Petrographic study of polished sections of these cakes together with x-ray diffraction analyses of material removed from their upper and lower surfaces and from various zones within the body of the cakes have established: (1) that the upper surfaces contain spherical globules of lead; (2) that occasionally bits of galena (PbS) are also present at the upper surfaces; (3) that the lower surfaces are coated with bright yellow massicot (yellow lead oxide: PbO); and (4) that the material constituting the body of the cakes is a mixture of litharge (yellow lead oxide: PbO) and massicot.l07 In addition, small inclusions of copper metal are dis- tributed throughout the cakes, and occasionally tiny bright white particles of another metal or mineral are found within the cakes.

Again, interpretation of these data must await a much more thorough investigation of the cakes, but even at this point there seems little question that they represent one of the stages in the purification of silver ores or of silver-lead ores through the addition of lead or lead sulfide. There are numerous references by the chroniclers to the winning of silver from its ores with the aid of suruchec or lead sulfide, 108 though such allusions generally refer to practices carried out at Potosi. Barba defines soroches as "those ores in which lead 'grows', most are black, crusty, and shiny." 109

Georg Petersen"° equates suruche with galena, but points out that suruche was the term used specifically for galena of small crystal size and that contained silver; macrocrystalline galena, he adds, is poor in silver. The

107. Litharge and massicot are allotropic forms of PbO.

108. Jose de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias (1590) (Madrid 1894); Barba, op. cit. (in note 2); Garcilaso, op. cit. (in note 71).

109. Barba, ibid. i. 31.

110. Petersen, op. cit. (in note 45).

lead served as a flux, causing the silver to melt. Gar- cilaso gives perhaps the most direct account of the use of suruchec in winning silver from its ores. " ' He describes the difficulty of smelting the silver ores at Potosi until the lndians extracted ore from a hill nearby which was almost pure lead ore. When they mixed the lead ore with the silver ore, the silver was caused to "run," i.e. it melted. For this reason, he explains, the lead ore was termed zuruchec, which means that which causes something to "slip" or to run. He goes on to describe how the amount of lead ore that is added to the silver to smelt it depends upon the richness of the latter, and that the initial stages of the smelting took place in portable furnaces, like ovens of clay, out of doors, using natural draughts. Afterwards the second and third smeltings were conducted in their houses, not with wind furnaces but with blowpipes (i.e. he implies that these final steps were carried out in vessels of some kind with the air for the fire being provided by people blowing into copper blowpipes) in order to purify the silver and get rid of (waste) the lead. Finally, Acosta"2 states that the reason the Indians could smelt the silver from Potosi was because it contained lead.

It seems clear that prior to the arrival of the Spanish, Andean smiths were winning silver from argentiferous ores of lead, very likely silver-rich galena. They may also have added lead to sulfides (which probably had to be roasted first) or chlorides of silver to aid in the smelting of such ores. We do not know whether the ores they used were combined silver sulfide - lead sulfide ores or the oxidized zones of such ores that may have contained silver. Regardless of the exact nature of the

111. The original text in which Garcilaso, op. cit. (in note 71) I. viii. 25 refers to the smelting of silver ores from Potosi follows. E1 metal de la plata se saca del cerro grande, como atras se ha dicho; en el cual hallaron a los principios mucha dificultad en fundirlo, porque no corria, sino que se quemaba y consumia en humo, y no sabian los indios la causa, aunque habian trazado otros metales. Mas como la necesidad o la codicia sea tan gran maestra, principalmente en lances de oro y plata, puso tanta diligencia buscando y probando remedios, que dio en uno, y fue que en el cerro pequeno hallo metal bajo, que casi todo o del todo era de plomo, el cual mezclado con el metal de plata le hacia correr; por lo cual le llamaron zuruchec, que quiere decir el que hace deslizar. Mezclaban estos dos metales por su cuenta y razon . . . porque no todo metal de plata es de una misma suerte, que unos metales son de mas plata que otros, aunque sean de una misma veta; . . . y conforme a la calidad, y riqueza de cada metal le echaban el zuruchec; templado asi el metal lo fundian en unos hor- nillos portatiles a manera de alnafes de barro. No fundian con fuelles ni a soplos con los canutos de cobre, como en otra dijimos que fundian la plata y el oro para labrarlo, que aunque lo probaron muchas veces nunca corrio el metal, ni pudieron los indios alcanzar la causa; por lo cual dieron en fundirlo al viento natural.... En ellas hacian sus primeras fundiciones; despues en sus casas hacian las segundas y terceras con los canutos de cobre, para apurar la plata y gastar el plomo; . . .

112. Acosta, op. cit. (in note 108) iv. 9.


charge, the reasons for which such mixtures are easy to smelt have to do with the remarkable properties of lead. The smelting of any ore requires both the reduction of the mineral to the metal and the separation of this from the non-metallic material (gangue) that is present. This separation is usually achieved by the formation of two immiscible liquids which separate under the influence of gravity. When only small amounts of metal are present, as in many silver and gold ores, some collector is needed to give bulk to the separating liquid metal, and lead ore, which itself often contains a perceptible amount of silver, can be used for this purpose. The ores are roasted to remove sulphur by oxidation and then smelted with charcoal (which serves both as a fuel and a reducing agent) to yield a lead-rich metal which separates from the slag, composed of fused rocky matter. The silver, and gold if present, is almost all contained in the lead, which dissolves it readily. If the roasted ore is only partly reduced, the remaining lead oxide serves to flux the other materials, for it is a potent solvent when molten. The metal from the first smelting is then heated to about 900° C and subjected to a current of air, forming molten lead oxide (litharge) which is immiscible with the metal and floats on top of it. This is continually skimmed or run off, carrying with it oxides of any other base metals that may be present. As oxidation proceeds, the pool of lead-silver alloy diminishes in size and in- creases in purity and silver content until ultimately a mass of pure silver remains free from all other metals. Usually the roasting, the smelting, and the cupellation, as the last operation is called, are performed in separate furnaces, for they need different combinations of temperature and access to air, but they could be carried out consecutively in a single furnace.

The lead cakes from Ancon seem to represent a final stage in one of the purification regimes, for they are almost pure lead oxide. The presence of galena in the polished sections suggest that either suruchec was added to a silver ore or that a silver-rich galena was being smelted. The bits of copper present in the cakes are evidently particles removed from the silver ore by the collecting action of the lead oxide.

Both the lead cakes and the scoriated sherds provide evidence for the smelting of sulfide ores at Ancon in the pre-Spanish era. It is interesting that such activities were undertaken at Ancon when the surrounding area is rather devoid of mineral resources and perhaps also of fuel. 113 We do not know if Ancon was as arid in antiqui- ty as it is today. Even if it were, however, wood was obviously brought into the site, since the roofs of many of the graves reported by Carrion Cachot were made of

113. Willey and Corbett, op. cit. (in note 90) discuss the aridity and lack of flora in the Ancon area.

huarango.ll4 Bits of charcoal intimately associated with the slags from Ancon were analysed by the Forest Products Laboratory of the U. S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. They proved to belong to the acacia group of legumes and are likely to be the species known locally as huarango.ll5 Uhlell6 also mentions finding large accumulations of llama dung in certain areas of the necropolis which, as we shall see in the section on "Fuels" below, has and still does serve as fuel for smelting in many parts of the Andes. He also mentions the ubiquitous coastal desert plant tillandsia as having been used as a fuel at Ancon, the same plant that sustained the conflagration at Chan Chan.

Recent metallogenetic maps and maps of modern working mines in Peru do not indicate any mines in the immediate vicinity of Ancon. The nearest large mine is at Huachoc (ca. 1,600 m.), about mid-way along the road from the Chillon Valley to Huaral in the Chancay Valley. Its ores comprise mixed veins of copper mineral and gold. On the other hand, Raimondi collected a sample of malachite with limonite from the Q. de Canarios (No. 1381 ) immediately to the NE of Ancon, and another mixed ore (No. 1382) of atacamite, limonite, malachite, and chrysocolla from Cerro Pied- ras Gordas, just 2.5 km. south of Ancon."7 It is quite possible, therefore, that copper minerals on or near the coast were sufficiently abundant to have been exploited. Silver ores or argentiferous lead ores could have come from the highlands near Canta or even from the Rimac Valley where Raimondi describes deposits of argentiferous lead ores in the San Mateo area (ca. 3,139 m.), now known as the Viso-Aruri district. We do not know if such Pb-Ag ores or the particularly rich copper ores of the upper Rimac Valley, from San Mateo to La Oroya, were exploited and brought to the coast where they may have then been shipped to coastal sites such as Ancon. If no silver or silver-lead ores are found near

114. Carrion Cachot, op. cit. (in note 90).

I 15. I am grateful to Dr. R. C. Koeppen, in charge of the Center for Wood Anatomy Research, for examining the charcoal specimens from Ancon. His notes follow: "You suggest this might be huaranga wood, Acacia farnesiana, and from what I can see of the anatomy it indicates that it belongs to the acacia group of legumes and it may well be that species. However, although the cross sectional paren- chyma pattern is of the same type as huaranga, the wood rays seem to be rather narrow for that species and are more like the related A. pan- iculata, called pashaco." (Personal communication, October 1975). Weberbauer cites three species of acacia common to Peru, A. macracantha, A. riparia, and A. tortuosa. Of these, the first grows abundantly on the central coast where it is called huarango. A. Weber- bauer, El Mundo Vegetal de Los Andes Peruanos, Estudio Fitoge- ografico, Ministerio de Agricultura (Lima 1945).

116. Uhle, op. cit. (in note 90).

117. Raimondi, op. cit. (in note 29).


Ancon, a highland source is certainly a plausible explanation.

Reexcavation of the Miramar area from which these materials are said to have come would be well worthwhile. Would it even be too rash to suggest that the hundred-odd black, diorite grinding stones (each of which measures ca. 1 m. x 0.5 m.) found scattered about the necropolis of Ancon and described both by Reiss and Stubel and by Uhlell8 as grinding stones for the processing of foods might actually have been used for grinding mineral? Still, we would have to account for the apparent disparity between the scarcity of metal objects found at Ancon and a flourishing metallurgical industry. But Ancon may prove to be a more significant metallurgical center than had ever been supposed.

Fuels There are several questions to raise concerning fuels

for metallurgical operations. What kinds of fuels were used for firing furnaces, or, more generally, for providing the temperatures necessary to the operations being carried out? In the case of smelting, where reduction of ore is the essential process, was the charge made up of ore and fuel in its natural state (e.g., wood, animal dung, xerophytic plants, or straw) or of ore and fuel that had previously been processed into charcoal? Were smelting sites chosen for their proximity to good sources of fuel or was fuel brought to smelting sites or to workshops from considerable distances?

The chroniclers provide good evidence for the variety of fuels in use in the Andes during the early years of the Spanish presence there. Barba, in his chapter on "Fur- naces and Methods of Burning Ores in Rock Form''ll9 lists wood (lena) as the principal fuel. Where wood was not available, he continues, llama dung (estiercol de carneros de la tierra), the yareta plant (azorela yareta), large pieces of dung from corrals where cattle are kept (as distinct from llama or sheep dung consisting of small pellets), and ichu, the highland grass that grows as the normal ground cover at elevations of about 3,000 m. and above, were used. l 20 Zaratel 2 l also mentions the

118. Reiss and Sttibel, op. cit. (in note 90) tafel 4; Uhle, op. cit. (in note 90).

119. Barba, op. cit. (in note 2) iv. 4.

120. Ichu and yareta are two of the most important plants in the ethnobotany of the Andean sierra. The grassy ichu plant serves as pasturage for llamas and alpacas as well as being an important source of fuel. Several types of resinous plants common to the puna of the southern Andes (S. Peru, Bolivia, and N. Chile) are found at altitudes of 4,000 m. and above. Among these are various species of the genus azorela (e.g. azorela yareta, azorela madreporica) which are particularly good fuels because of the resins they contain. They make an ex-

use of llama dung in treeless areas, and Cobol22 goes so far as to say that without ichu no mercury could have been smelted in Peru because there is no wood available near the principal highland mercury mines such as Huancavelica. Mercury, of course, was essential to the Colonial silver industry.

II1 the 19th century, Pfordte'23 described the methods of smelting silver-lead ores in reverberatory furnaces he observed in the Peruvian highlands, near Cerro de Pasco. There "the fuels consisted mainly of dried llama- dung, called taquia, gathered by the Indians during the dry season and kept under shelter. Sufficient heat can be produced with it to roast and smelt ores.... Wood as a fuel is out of the question, on account of its great cost. The Elres were generally started with dried grass, and when necessary, were kept low for a long time by covering the embers."l24 Barbal25 also mentions the use of ichu as the uppermost layer of a charge of fuel-plus- ore in order to start the fire more rapidly. Remyl26 similarly describes the winning of silver from its sulfur minerals in reverberatory furnaces in the Department of Junin.

The fuel used is taquia or sheep dung, a common fuel in most of our highlands, principally in central Peru. The dung of llamas is also used for the same purpose, but only in places and in circumstances where sheep dung is not available; the latter is preferable because it burns more easily.

In order to be used in furnaces, sheep taquia is prepared by exposing it to the sun until all the moisture has evaporated, which is usually done right in the corral itself. In the more important sites where it is used, there are large covered storehouses where it is kept; all that ts needed for the year is prepared in the dry season, because during the winter rains it is not possible to obtain it in good condition. (my translation)l 27

ceedingly hot fire and, along with another group of resinous plants commonly referred to as tola, they constitute the main fuels of the puna peoples.

121. Augustin de Zarate, Historia del Descubrimiento, y Conquista de la Provincia del Peru . . ., A. Gonzalez Barcia, ed., Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias Occidentales, T. 3 (Madrid 1749) viii.

122. Cobo, op. cit. (in note 18) iii. 41.

123. Otto Pfordte, "Ancient Method of Silver-Lead Smelting in Peru," Trans. American Institute of Mining Engineers 21 (1893) 25-30.

124. Ibid. 26-27.


126. Pedro Felix Remy, "Tratamiento Metalurgico por Fusion Empleado en el Interior del Peru para los Minerales de Plata Sulfurados," Anales de la Escuela de Construcciones Civiles y de Minas del Peru 3 (1883) 1 - 13.

127. Ibid. 5.


Both writers observe that, because of the rapidity with which the dung burns, it must be introduced into the furnace in small quantities in an almost uninterrupted manner.

Boman, 128 in describing the metallurgical installations he found at San Antonio de los Cobres in Argen- tina, speculates about the kinds of fuel that might have been used there: the yareta plant that grows in the mountains surrounding Cobres, churqui wood that is very rare in the puna but which is found on the slopes of the valley near the Cobres copper mines, and taquia, llama dung.

Evidence of most of these types of fuel was found during the survey. At Co. Landosa large pieces of completely carbonized hardwoods, in the form of thin twigs or branches, were found among the remains of the copper smelting area. At Ancon, the site just north of Lima which is entirely arid and covered by desert sands, carbonized huarango wood was intimately associated with the smelting and refining wastes. Although no carbonized remains of the xerophytic achupalla plant (Tillandsia Latifolia) that is common to the northern deserts of Peru were found associated with the various smelting sites visited on the survey, achupalla is used as a fuel today on the north coast and was the sole com- bustant that sustained the day-long fire that melted the adobe walls of the presumed monumental smelter at Chan Chan.l29 Neither was any coal (carbon de piedra) found at the sites visited, although Oscar Lostaunau claims that in 1950 he found bits of coal associated with a group of Inca wind furnaces situated on the slopes of Co. Pitura in the Jequetepeque Valley.l30 The cerro is now completely covered with sand, and no vestiges of the smelters were found on the survey. The use of coal in that region is not at all improbable, because there is a large source of coal in the Q. de Cupisnique, about 20 km. SE of Co. Pitura.l3l A late l9th century map of the area indicates the Inca road that passed Co. Pitura, running south to the ancient site of Cupisnique.l32

In the southern sierra, at two large Spanish ore processing and reElning sites in the high puna to the west of Lake Titicaca, pellets of carbonized sheep and camelid dung were found. One of these sites, Mawka Paratia, which lies at an elevation of 4,375 m., was the

128. Boman, op. cit. (in note 14) 540.

129. Lechtman and Moseley, op. cit. (in note 1).

130. Oscar Lostaunau worked with Paul Kosok and is intimately familiar with archaeological sites in the Jequetepeque Valley. He accompanied me to Co. Pitura where I did find traces of copper mineral on the surface sands, but no fuel remains were located.

131. J. Balta, Las Pertenencias Carboniferas del Sindicato Cupisnique (Lima 1907).

132. O. Lostaunau, personal communication.

processing center for the Colonial silver-lead mine at Paratia,l33 3 km. to the west. At this elevation, not even the potato will grow, and the high, cold and barren puna is covered with the ubiquitous ichu. Paratia is a community of pastores, shepherds whose economy is based upon the raising of alpacas and llamas and the sale or exchange of their wool. The droppings from these animals are the only source of fuel, other than ichu, that is both convenient and abundant. The Spanish took advantage of this dung as fuel in their activities at Mawka Paratia where camelid dung was found in a dump outside one of the principal ovens or smelters. Similarly, at the Hda. Chiluyo ((4,100 m.), near Pichacane, a major Colonial silver mine/ore- processing complex, carbonized pellets of sheep dung were found when the floor of a furnace was excavated to a depth of 15 cm. The carbonized dung was present in large quantities in a layer some 10 cm. thick.

Finally, we must consider seriously the use of maize cobs for fuel as is indicated by the remains of fully carbonized whole cobs of maize found inside the "furnaces" at Curamba.

Evidently, a large variety of fuels was used in the Andes. People burned whatever was locally available and would give them both the temperatures and en- vironments (e.g., a reducing as opposed to an oxidizing atmosphere) they required, undoubtedly tailoring the particulars of any operation to the kind of fuel used. On the other hand, we have little evidence for the nature of furnace charges as distinct from fuels used simply for firing. Since I found no intact smelters during the survey, I cannot tell whether or not the carbonized materials associated with smelting at the various sites were originally incorporated in the charge itself, i.e. mixed with the ore; nor can we determine whether or not they were used simply to provide the heat necessary within the furnace and were never in contact with the ore. And we do not know whether or not they were used in the form of charcoal or in their natural condition and carbonized in the heating process. Ingeniero Rivadeneyra described the Late Intermediate Period smelter he saw at Co. Landosa (see above, the section on "Smelting") as containing a charge of malachite and wood (lena), in alternating layers. Barba also explains the manner in which to charge a furnace for burning ore in chunk form.l34

66First place on the floor of the furnace lengths of thick wood, if there is any, laying one above another in the form of a grid, and later place smaller pieces on top; and above

133. Flores, op. cit. (in note 85).



this place the ore, the thickest pieces Elrst, later the smaller ones . . . If wood is not available, this is done with yareta and llama dung or large pieces of dung that one removes from the corrals where the cattle are kept, and several layers of ichu so that the fire will take more easily" (my translation).

In Chapters 5 and 6 he continues his account, describing furnaces in which one uses primarily wood for smelting and others in which primarily charcoal is used. In the first category are reverberatory furnaces and also circular holes dug into the ground and filled, from the bottom to the top with alternating layers of ichu or grass, thick pieces of wood, smaller pieces of wood and, Flnally, the ore on top. In building the charge, a hole is left in the center so that coals can be thrown in which start the fire burning at all levels within the excavated area. If it is convenient to make such a pit near a ravine, a hole is made in the bottom allowing the fire to be lit more easily and permitting the smelted metal eventually to run out.'35 Barba states that this system was used in los Chichas for smelting lead from galena. Lllis Capoche,l36 describing the smelting of silver ores at Potosi in 1585, talks about small wind furnaces, constructed of loose stones without any clay mortar, which the local populations charged with ore and fuel, the latter in the form of camelid dung and wood "because they had no charcoal.''l37

The only truly indigenous furnace that utilizes charcoal, according to Barba, is the huaira. In these, burning charcoal was placed on the small protuberances on the outside of the ceramic smelters (see FIG. 6). Each such protuberance was located below an air hole in the side of the huaira. The charcoal served to heat the air as it entered the furnace. Inside, according to various chroniclers,'38 the charge consisted of ore mixed with charcoal. As was mentioned earlier, the portable huaira, which these accounts describe, was probably the Spanish version of a stationary Andean type of smelter, but we have no evidence about the constituents of the charge inside the pre-Spanish type.

Judging from the scant archaeological evidence and our ethnohistorical and ethnographic data, I suspect

135. Ibid. iv. 5.

136. Capoche, op. cit. (in note 15) I, 109.

137. Capoche assigns the invention of the huaira, which he describes as a small wind furnace made of clay, to a Spaniard, Juan de Marro- qui, who left Potosi for Spain after his invention had been adopted. Capoche, op. cit. (in note 15) I, 110.

138. Cobo, op. cit. (in note 18) iii. 38; Cieza, op. cit. (in note 70) cix; Ovando, op. cit. (in note 53); Garcilaso, op. cit. (in note 71) viii. 25; P. Baltasar Ramirez, whose description of huairas, written in 1597, is quoted in Bargallo, op. cit. (note 14) 45; Zarate, op. cit. (in note 121)

. . .

Vlil .

that charcoal as such, that is, fully carbonized organic material, was not commonly used in pre-Columbian times as part of a normal furnace charge, in close contact with the ore. The rather loose use of the word carbon by the chroniclers suggests that they really meant "fuel," and that carbon was a generic term widely used to indicate any sort of fuel. Bomanl39 argues in much the same vein, pointing out that the "lena menuda, en rama'' (small twigs) specified by Cobo for use in reverberatory furnaces would have been too thin to make good charcoal; he doubts wood such as churqui or the yareta plant was ever carbonized before use. Only someone as meticulous as Barba, who was intimately familiar with the details of the processes he describes, distinguishes among types and conditions of fuels. His carbon really means charcoal.

It appears that proximity to an adequate supply of fuel was important in the location of smelters, but the local adaptation of a wide variety of fuels to metallurgy made it unnecessary to transport combustible materials over any considerable distance. Even at Ancon, where the present arid conditions may have always existed, fuel supplies in the form of huarango wood were relatively close. I found no evidence in Peru of long distance movement of fuels. Whereas ores travelled widely, local metallurgical regimes were made to conform to the fuel resources at hand.

Conclusions The issues posed at the beginning of this paper

those that motivated the survey are ample in scope and, if not ambitious, certainly are beyond resolution at this early stage in our efforts to appreciate Andean metallurgy as a technological and cultural phenom- enon. Still, the survey has answered some questions and suggested ways of approaching others.

It is now clear that the north coast of Peru was sufficiently rich in copper ores to have supported the important copper industries of the Mochica and Chimu. The ores they smelted were not only the oxides and carbonates of copper but also chrysocolla, hydrated copper silicate. The mining and smelting of ores was thus as much a coastal as a highland activity, a fact that may seem simplistic but which I don't think has been sufficiently appreciated.

Because of the amount of metal produced and its dis- tribution and function in society (sewing needles are found as frequently as more elite items such as burial masks or adornments), one may argue that mining and smelting activities were conducted on a large scale. But

139. Boman, op. cit. (in note 14) 552. Professor Cyril Stanley Smith has pointed out to me that a reverberatory furnace works far better with a long, yellow flame from wood than with only carbon monoxide from charcoal.


those activities do not appear to have been relegated to a few well-deElned geographic centers. Even if Curamba proves to be a smelting or refining site of industrial proportions in terms of Andean production levels, it probably represents an Imperial, regional center to which ores were sent for processing from many mines in the surrounding area. At the pre-Empire level there is, at present, little evidence for that kind of arrangement. Rather, mining and smelting seem to have been carried out, at least on the coast, at many locations where the necessary ores, fuel, and strong winds were all available. Cerro Landosa and Cerro Songoy are typical of such sites. Even at Chan Chan, the data point to the smelting of small quantities of copper in an almost workshop type of environment.

It has been argued that because "no vestiges have been found of the deep mines and copious slags that should result from the intense metallurgical activities of a sulElde smelting era''l40 the Andean peoples were not smelting sulfide ores prior to the arrival of the Spanish. If one were to argue solely on the basis of the kinds of remains found at some of the later Bronze Age mining sites near the Iranian-Afghanistan border or the Roman sites on the island of Cyprus, such a conclusion might hold weight. But in the Andes, ore smelting was a much less centralized activity, probably carried out on a part- time basis in many communities, and the build-up of large quantities of slag at any one location is not typical. Furthermore, highland outcrops of copper- arsenic ores such as enargite and tennantite are right at the surface in many areas due to glaciation or intensive erosion. Those I collected from Sinchao were not more than 2 m. underground. One of the most important results of the survey, in fact, was the lack of evidence of arsenic-bearing minerals or ores on the north coast, suggesting that they must have been exploited in the sierra. The highland ores, however, are chiefly sulfides or sulfarsenides, a fact amply supported by regional metallogenic studies.l4l We must begin to think seriously about and to seek evidence for the sulfide smelting of complex copper-arsenic ores in the northern highlands at least during the Late Intermediate Period.

What we still have virtually no evidence for, however, are the mining populations themselves. In the altiplano,

the metalworkers of Plateria and Llaquepa, who represent the craftsmen of the Lupaca kingdom, were mining

140. C. Patterson, op. cit. (in note 11) 311.

141. Ulrich Petersen, "Regional Geology and Major Ore Deposits of Central Peru," Economic Geology 60 (1965) 407-476; "Metallogenic Provinces in South America," Geologischen Rundschau 59 (1970) 834- 897; "Geochemical and Tectonic Implications of South American Metallogenic Provinces," A nnals of the New York A cademy of Sciences 196 (1972) 1-38; and personal communication, September 1 975.

or utilizing ores very close to their own communities. An interesting question, in fact, is whether these communities of metalworkers, so carefully singled out as plateros in the ethnohistorical literature, were special- ized communities of craftsmen, of miners, or of both, and whether or not they practiced their trade to the ex- clusion of all else. Were they farmers as well or were they supported in their specialty by other members of their communities?'42 But, in other situations, when ores were not locally available, who undertook to mine and to smelt them? Who supplied copper-arsenic ores, in one form or another, to the Chimu, and who mined the silver ores imported to Ancon? How were these people organized? Clearly, ores or won metal were travel- ing considerable distances, mainly from the highlands to the coast, well before the Inca centralized and controlled the metallurgical industry throughout Tawantin- suyu.

It will probably be easier to determine the source of the ores/metal and the routes they travelled than it will the nature and ethnic affiliation of the labor force that mined and processed them. The place to look for communities of miners is, of course, the highlands where, however, preservation is least good and where Spanish exploitation of indigenous sites destroyed them. As Bray and Bargallol43 have pointed out, one has to look at the farthest reaches of the Inca empire where the Spanish presence was slight and where even Inca domination was not excessive. Argentina and Chile seem likely prospects for further surveys.l44

Finally, a few words about the Andean wind furnace. The data from Cerro Landosa and even from Curamba indicate that furnaces or ovens were built into artificial terraces on windy hillsides to take advantage of the strong prevailing winds that provided forced air to the burning fuel. Such installations were stationary and without doubt were pre-Hispanic. We are on firm ground in arguing a considerable time depth for this solution to the problem of smelting ores, one that seems to have been in use from at least the Late Intermediate Period, if not earlier. In fact, the critical element in the location of such installations was not the proximity of ore or of fuel, but the strength and direction of the wind. Ore travelled to smelters or people travelled to the ore; local fuels of many kinds were utilized and the smelting regimes tailored to accommodate the type of

142. For a discussion of the relationships between metalworkers and the communities in which they live and work, see Ambrosetti, op. cit. (in note 17) and M. J. Rowlands, "The Archaeological Interpretation of Prehistoric Metalworking," World Archaeology 3 (1971) 210-224.

143. Bray, op. cit. (in note 74); Bargallo, op. cit. (in note 14).

144. See note 3 above and the "Introduccion" in Ricardo E. Latcham, Arqueologia de la Region Atacamena (Santiago 1938) 5-11.


fuel available. Only the wind remained an arbiter of the success of the system, and smelting sites were chosen primarily for their favorable wind conditions. Con- siderable effort was made to utilize wind action by building terraces that contoured hills in exactly those orientations where the best draughts would result. Even Ancon, an otherwise rather unlikely area for smelting, is a windy site, especially between December and March when the entire central coast is extremely windy, and is now almost entirely buried under thick layers of sand moved there by the action of prevailing local winds.

Surface evidence of metallurgical activity in the Andes is scarce and extremely difficult to find. Nevertheless, surveys of the type reported here are the only way to begin to locate the kinds of sites that would profit further study. Though the work may be slow and "low yield," it is necessary and worthwhile. By combining archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic methods of inquiry, the results here have been far richer and more meaningful than any one of these strategies alone would have yielded.

Heather Lechtman is A ssociate Professor of A rchaeology and Ancient Technology at M.I. T., with a joint appoint- ment in the Departments of Humanities and Materials Science and Engineering. She has combined her training in physics, anthropology, and art history to focus on studies of ancient technologies, particularly those of the A ndean culture area. More generally, she is concerned with the articulation of technology in culture and in understanding prehistoric cultures through technical study of their material artifacts.

Acknowledgments. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my Peruvian friends and colleagues without whose help and counsel most of the survey could never have been conducted. They, as much as I, are responsible for whatever measure of success the survey achieved in answering some of the issues it was designed to explore. Most especially I wish to thank Dr. Georg Petersen G. who shared with me his vast fund of knowledge of An- dean geology and early metallurgy and whose en- couragement and guidance were a constant source of support. My sincere thanks go also to Alberto Benavides, Edmundo Benites, Cristobal Campana, Feruccio Carassai, Onofre Castaneda, Americo Herrera, Jackelyne Portal, Oscar Lostaunau, Felipe de Lucio, Luis Lumbreras, H ugo Ludena, Duncan Masson, Elias Mujica, Rodolfo Ortega, Fidel Ramos, Rodolfo Ravines, Rogger Ravines, M arciano Rodriguez, Jorge Rondon, Felix Tapia, Hippolito Torres, Joaquin Santolalla, AnaMaria Soldi; and to my North American colleagues who helped me during the course of their own research in Peru: Thomas Dillehay, Joel Grossman, John Hyslop, Carol Mackey, John Murra, Patricia Netherly, and John Wilson.

A first draft of this paper was read by Ulrich Petersen, Cyril Stanley Smith, and Gordon R. Willey. Their meticulous criticisms have considerably improved this final version, and I am most grateful to them for their generous help. I would also like to thank Margaret Towle for her help in interpreting the plant materials collected during the survey.

Documents

Lechtman 1976.pdf