Archaelogical Analysis of a Colonial Copper Smelting Furnace from Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacan, Mexico.

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in South Central Michoacán México, Ongoing Studies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1788 the Spanish Crown wanted to evaluate the mining industry in New Spain in order to start the implementation of new technologies, change the domain and administration of the mines, and create new foundries that would help the mining industry to have more eficiency in all the processes related to this activity. That is why the Crown sent German miners and mineralogists from Europe. Our work refers to Francisco Fisher, because he was responsible for making studies for the Crown of the mining conditions in Michoacan. He was also commisioned to construct a copper smelting furnace based on the new technology of Europe. This poster is about a copper smelting furnace that was found near Santa Clara del Cobre by our team, PAPACSUM, in the 2018 survey season. By comparing archaeological analysis and documents, we show that this smelting furnace is the same that Francisco Fisher constructed. Additionally we reconstruct digitally the smelting furnace starting from sizing the ruins of the site. Moreover, we want to explain why Francisco Fisher’s technology did not work in the region, because the copper workers of the area still use the prehispanic and early colonial techniques.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Archaeology in South Central Michoacán México, Ongoing Studies

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23581