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Copper Smelting at the Archaeological Site of El Manchón, Guerrero: From Indigenous Practice to Colonial-Scale Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2020

Johan García Zaldúa  and
Dorothy Hosler Open the ORCID record for Dorothy Hosler [Opens in a new window]
Johan García Zaldúa
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar: Cultura, Espaço e Memoria, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto, Via Panorâmica s/n. Porto, Portugal
Dorothy Hosler*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 8-204, Cambridge, MA02139, USA
*
(hosler@mit.edu, corresponding author)
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Abstract

We examined copper production at the archaeological site of El Manchón, located in the Sierra Madre del Sur of Guerrero, using archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and materials engineering data. Thirty-six AMS wood charcoal samples from El Manchón, analyzed using Bayseian statistics, date the two domestic sectors of El Manchón from cal AD 1250–1440 (Sector 1) and cal AD 1280–1680 (Sector 3). The smelting sector (Sector 2) contains copper ore and slag and dates to cal AD 1630–1825. Historical sources show that the Spanish had no experience smelting copper metal and were forced to negotiate with indigenous specialists to acquire smelted copper. These specialists provided it in return for tax exemptions and other economic privileges. The indigenous specialists requested iron tools for mining; the Spanish suggested introducing bellows to smelt copper in volume. In the smelting sector we excavated the stone foundations and a slag cake that conform to the dimensions of a hand-powered bellows-driven furnace in which the copper ore was smelted in a circular depression known as a cendrada. Thus far, this furnace design has only been excavated at El Manchón. This bellows-powered furnace was likely operated by indigenous Manchón specialists, who probably initially smelted copper using the more ancient blowpipe technology. The dates for the smelting and occupation of El Manchón overlap.

En este trabajo se analiza la producción de cobre en el sitio arqueológico El Manchón (Guerrero, México) a partir de datos arqueológicos, históricos, etnográficos y de ingeniería de materiales. El Manchón se localiza en la Sierra Madre del Sur de Guerrero a unos 1.300 m snm. Se recuperaron 36 muestras de carbón vegetal las cuales fueron analizadas por AMS y usando estadística Bayesiana. Los fechados obtenidos ubican los dos sectores habitacionales del sitio entre 1250–1440 cal dC (sector 1) y entre 1280–1680 cal dC (sector 3). Por su parte, el área de fundición (sector 2), data de entre 1630–1825 cal dC y está caracterizada por la presencia de grandes cantidades de escoria y mena de cobre. Las fuentes históricas coloniales muestran que los españoles no tenían experiencia en fundición de cobre y esto los llevó a negociar con los especialistas indígenas para adquirirlo. Estos últimos aceptaron producir el cobre a cambio de, entre otras cosas, algunas exenciones de impuestos y otros privilegios de orden económico y político. En el intercambio tecnológico resultante, los especialistas indígenas solicitaron la introducción de herramientas de hierro para la minería, mientras que los españoles sugirieron introducir fuelles para aumentar el volumen de producción. En el sector de fundición de El Manchón se excavaron los cimientos de piedra y una torta de escoria que se ajustan a las dimensiones de un horno con fuelles manuales, en el cual el cobre se funde en una depresión circular conocida como cendrada. Hasta el momento, este diseño de horno solo ha sido excavado en El Manchón. Dado que las fechas de la operación de la fundición y la ocupación del sitio se superponen, es probable que este tipo de horno, accionado con fuelles, haya sido operado por especialistas indígenas de El Manchón, quienes posiblemente habían fundido cobre en el pasado usando la antigua técnica de soplar a través de cañutos.

Keywords

copper productionwestern Mexicohistorical archaeologymetallurgyproducción de cobreoeste de Méxicoarqueología históricametalurgia
Type
Article
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 558 - 575
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 by the Society for American Archaeology

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