An Introduction to Mining and Quarrying in the Ancient Andes: Sociopolitical, Economic and Symbolic Dimensions

Abstract

Geological resources have long contributed in significant ways to economic, social, political, and ritual life in Andean communities. From the first mobile forager groups to the vast Inca empire, raw materials from mineral resources such as architectural, lapidary, ornamental, and knappable stone; clay for pottery mineral ores for prized metals such as gold, silver, and copper; minerals for pigments such as hematite, cinnabar, and manganese; and salt have all had a profound—if sometimes unacknowledged—role in the Andean world. While archaeologists have used a number of analytical techniques on the materials that people have procured from the earth, these materials all have one thing in common: they were extracted from a mine or quarry, and despite their importance, comparative analyses of mines and quarries have been exceptionally rare in the New World, especially in the Andes. The papers in the current volume focus on archaeological research at primary deposits of raw materials extracted through mining or quarrying in the Andean region (Fig. 1.1).