Experimental Investigation of Primary Copper Smelting in Central Michoacan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Copper was the main metal produced and worked in Mesoamerica, but data for pre-modern primary production and processing remain elusive. Systematic research at Itziparátzico, a Late Postclassic location in Central Michoacán, Mexico, has located evidence of copper production areas where significant amounts of smelting slags were found. Mineralogical and chemical investigations of slag samples indicate that the production activities carried out at the site involved primary chalcopyrite smelting, and revealed a sophisticated smelting method, possibly involving the use of furnaces properly designed and built to provide reducing conditions during the refinement of copper ores. The present work discusses recent research involving experimental smelting of copper ore (chalcopyrite) and the ensuing production of slag, followed by a comparison between the microstructural, mineralogical, and chemical characteristics of the archaeometallurgical finds and the experimental residues. A set of experimentally produced samples, have been chemically characterized using electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). The results obtained thus so far yield bornite + pyrrhotite during roasting and Cu droplets in a glassy matrix of olivine + glass during smelting, similar to the features found in archaeological slags. This research will allow the development of a model for the Late Postclassic Tarascan process of copper production.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23189