Lake Reveals Evidence of Pre-Incan Silver Industry. From Scientific American:
Posted on September 26, 2003 11:30 AM. Filed under: history & archaeology.From the depths of a small Andean lake scientists have pulled up evidence of pre-Incan silver smelting that is nearly 1,000 years old. The discovery of metals associated with smelting in Bolivia's Laguna Lobato suggests that people practiced large-scale silver ore mining some 400 years before 15th-century Incans began their silver industry in the area. The findings, published today in the journal Science, clarify a record of New World technology that was partly destroyed by the extensive plundering and recycling associated with Spanish conquest.
Mark Abbott from the University of Pittsburgh and Alexander Wolfe from the University of Alberta detected traces of lead, antimony, bismuth, silver and tin in a sediment core from the bottom of the 11-meter-deep Laguna Lobato, which is located near the colonial mining center of Potosí. The researchers dated a 74.5-cm section in the core using measurements of radioactive elements and documented an increase in smelting-associated metals that began shortly after A. D. 1000. [continue]