Silver lining: evidence for Inka silver refining in northern Chile

Prehistoric silver purification using lead cupellation has been documented in multiple places throughout the Andes, but direct evidence of the Inka use of this technology has remained elusive. In this study, we use X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy, and electron-microprobe analysis to document direct evidence of Inka period (AD 1400–1532) silver purification using lead cupellation in the Tarapacá Valley of northern Chile. Local metalworkers used wind-driven huayra furnaces to produce pure lead metal, sustaining temperatures of ca. 900–1100 °C to smelt lead-bearing ores that may have included galena. The lead metal was then used in open-vessel cupellation of silver-bearing ores, some of which may have been cupriferous and derived from the nearby Inka mines at Huantajaya. Phase analyses of the slagged interiors of bowl-shaped ceramic vessels used for cupellation indicate that the metalworkers maintained the oxidizing environment and temperatures between 800 and 1100 °C requisite for cupellation. We argue that the Inka introduced this technique to Tarapacá metalworkers. The absence of finished silver artifacts in local valley contexts suggests that the refined silver was removed from the valley for use elsewhere in the empire.     

Copper production in late prehispanic northern Chile

The spatial organization, scale, and technology of copper production were greatly altered by the Inka incorporation of the Tarapacá Valley of northern Chile during the 15th and 16th centuries. Using survey data, we first document the valley's local pre-Inka copper production tradition, based on the use of wind-driven smelting furnaces known as huayras or huayrachinas. We then trace the transformations in copper production attendant upon imperial incorporation, including the spatial organization and scale of smelting. Based on materials excavated at the site of Tarapacá Viejo, we discuss the evidence for specific stages in the copper production process, such as ore processing, secondary refining, alloying, casting, and the production of finished artifacts. Through this analysis, we shed light on how the Inka reorganized and concentrated copper production at Tarapacá Viejo, and document the adoption of several new techniques, such as lining casting molds with bone ash. This and other lines of evidence indicate linkages between copper production technologies and techniques at Tarapacá Viejo and other Inka installations in Chile and northwestern Argentina. While connections between the Copiapó Valley and Argentina have long been known, such robust evidence has not been previously documented for the Tarapacá Valley.     

A Symposium on American National Character

The articles in this symposium address four themes in relation to the question of American national character: citizenship (Rogers M. Smith), community mores (Rick Santorum), participation (W. B. Allen), and governance (Philip A. Wallach). They are the beginning of our effort to investigate, assess, articulate, and perhaps claim—or reclaim—an ethos shared by the American people. Emerging out of the first phase of our American National Character project, they are far from exhausting the subject but represent an auspicious commencement of a contemporary effort no less important that that described by Washington during the founding era. “[W]e are either a United people, or we are not.” Let us hope that we are and that we can rediscover the roots of America's common cause and act as a nation.     

From Crafting to Caching: Technological and Iconographic Analyses of Blue Creek Cache 37

This paper presents technological and iconographic analyses of a Late Classic (a.d. 600–830) lithics cache recovered from the ancient Maya site of Blue Creek, Belize. The cache consisted of 21 obsidian prismatic blades and a number of chert artifacts, including 21 stemmed bifaces, a large laurel leaf biface, and a tridentate eccentric. The technological analysis of the stemmed bifaces identified three distinct stem production techniques that may be attributable to a combination of idiosyncratic knapping gestures and laterality, or handedness. A survey of Maya iconography demonstrated that large laurel-leaf bifaces and tridentate eccentrics occur in scenes depicting sacrifice and the burning of human remains, often by ritual specialists titled ch’ajoom, or “person of incense.” It is suggested that the presence of a large laurel-leaf biface and tridentate eccentric in the cache may indicate that Blue Creek was the residence of ch’ajoom at some point during the Late Classic period.