Gold Mining and Metallurgy in the Argentinean Northwestern Extreme during Prehispanic and Colonial Times

CARLOS I. ANGIORAMA

Paris

Workshop; AURUM: authentication and analysis of gold work; 2009

Musée du Louvre

In the first section of this paper we summarize the results of archaeometallurgy research to feature gold metallurgy development in the Argentinean Northwest, in prehispanic and colonial times. Our research allow us to say that gold objects seems to have mostly spread in the Argentinean Northwestern Extreme (province of Jujuy) between 900 and 1200 AD [1,2], but becomes scarce during the following two centuries when the accessibility to it was limited to fewer people. The pieces were found in special places - mainly ritual areas- restricted to only a few people [3]. We have stated that the local authorities would have strictly controlled the use and probably the production of gold objects [4]. During the 15th century, the annexation of a big part of the Argentinian Northwest to the Inka Empire originated important social changes. Not even a gold piece was found in the settlements of the Argentinean Northwestern Extreme in Inka times. Only a few little statues were found in some mountaintop sanctuaries of the Andes area. However, there are evidences of gold casting under severe imperial control in Rincón Chico [5] and Potrero de Payogasta [6]. Moreover, in 1587, governor of Tucumán Juan Ramírez de Velazco said that 50 years earlier, when Diego de Almagro went to the area, saw traders carrying metal ingots with the Inka symbol from the Argentinian Northwest to Cuzco [7]. We can conclude that as most historians say, Inkas were the natural owners of gold and would have monopolized its production and use as in other parts of the Empire. In colonial times, since the pacification of the region in the XVII century, the Puna of Jujuy was considered a very economically important area due to its mineral resources. The extraction of gold in Rinconada and Santa Catalina’s areas were the main attractions for a considerable population dedicated to mining work and building of mills. It was such the importance of the Puna that at the end of the XVIII century this region, “a hostile and uninhabitable desert”, as the first Europeans described it, concentrated more than the 60% of the population of the present province of Jujuy [8]. In order to evaluate our hypothesis about the regional gold deposits mining and the gold trade in prehispanic and colonial times, we carried out intensive archaeological explorations in three auriferous areas in the Puna of Jujuy. In the second part of this paper, we present our field work results and the new information generated from them.