2009/09/30 by Carol Schultze, Charles Stanish, David A. Scott +3 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Archaeology and Rock Art Studies #Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies #Indigenous #Structural basin #Geography #Geology #Ecology #Biology #Geomorphology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.0907733106
openalex publication_date 2009/09/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19
Archaeological excavations at a U-shaped pyramid in the northern Lake Titicaca Basin of Peru have documented a continuous 5-m-deep stratigraphic sequence of metalworking remains. The sequence begins in the first millennium AD and ends in the Spanish Colonial period ca. AD 1600. The earliest dates associated with silver production are 1960 + or - 40 BP (2-sigma cal. 40 BC to AD 120) and 1870 + or - 40 BP (2-sigma cal. AD 60 to 240) representing the oldest known silver smelting in South America. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis of production debris indicate a complex, multistage, high temperature technology for producing silver throughout the archaeological sequence. These data hold significant theoretical implications including the following: (i) silver production occurred before the development of the first southern Andean state of Tiwanaku, (ii) the location and process of silverworking remained consistent for 1,500 years even though political control of the area cycled between expansionist states and smaller chiefly polities, and (iii) that U-shaped structures were the location of ceremonial, residential, and industrial activities.