Jahresbericht 2010 - Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie gGmbH

Seite 38 Jahresbericht 2010
Fig. 1 The Atacama area
in the context of the South
Central Andes
Understanding Precolumbian copper exploitation in northern Chile
through Archaeometallurgical research
Blanca Maldonado, Thilo Rehren, Ernst Pernicka, Lautaro Núñez,
Alexander Leibbrandt
Numerous metal artefacts,
most of them from mortuary
contexts, have been
recovered in the Atacama
Desert of northern Chile
(Figure 1). Nevertheless,
the technological, social
and economic processes
involved in the production
and distribution of these
objects had, until recently,
remained virtually unknown.
Archaeometallurgical
Research
The present work is part of
an ongoing project which
investigates metallurgical
activities in northern Chile
using scientific analysis, as
a first step towards a largescale
map of prehistoric
copper production and
exchange across the South
Central Andes. A first systematic
study of the archaeometallurgy
of copper
in the Atacama region was
initiated in 2010, as part of
a joint international scientific
project including the
Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum
Archa ometrie (CEZA) in
Germany, the Institute of
Archaeology, University
College London (IoA, UCL),
and the R. P. Gustavo Le
Paige Archaeological Museum
in San Pedro de Atacama
in Chile. The project
was possible due to a fellowship
from the Alexander
von Humboldt Foundation,
and funding provided
by the National Copper
Corporation of Chile
(Codelco). This research
involved documentation
and sampling of already-
The Andes is a rich metallic
ore-bearing region, which,
to this day, provides a variety
of minerals for the production
of gold, silver, copper,
and tin. From the
standpoint of the pre-
Columbian peoples, however,
copper was the most
important metal, and
played a prominent role in
the early metallurgy of the
area. Copper was not only
the predominant metal, but
the most extensively used
base material. Andean metalworkers
produced an
assortment of copperbased
alloys, including copper-arsenic
and tin bronze,
which were fashioned
mainly as ornaments used
in religious ceremonies
and for the enhancement of
elite cultural status.
excavated artefacts from
the Archaeological Museum
in San Pedro de Atacama, as
well collection of copperrich
mineral samples from
different mining locations
in the Atacama region.
Över a thousand metal artefacts
from the Le Paige collection
have been recorded
in the course of two research
seasons, most of
them recovered from burials
at different oasis districts
of San Pedro de Atacama.
Saw-cut samples and
drill shavings were obtained
from 175 of these
objects, considering not
only their category and provenience,
but also their
state of preservation.