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The Smelting of Sulfide Ores of Copper in Preconquest Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Earle R. Caley  and
Dudley T. Easby Jr
Earle R. Caley
Affiliation:
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Dudley T. Easby Jr
Affiliation:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N. Y.
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Abstract

Doubts that the Peruvian Indians could smelt copper ores in pre-Columbian times are unjustified, although archaeological evidence for the very effective wind furnaces described by early chroniclers is scanty. Oxide and carbonate ores from shallow deposits are more simply smelted than the sulfide ores, which required roasting of the crushed ore prior to reduction at a higher temperature. New evidence for the smelting of sulfide ore comes from chemical analysis of an ingot from the Province of lea, and suggests the need for restudy of older analyses and a search for new prehistoric metallurgical evidence.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , July 1959 , pp. 59 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1959

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