Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America

<p>Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America is the extraction, <a href="/facts/List_of_purification_methods_in_chemistry/fSh2XHfh">purification</a> and <a href="/facts/Alloy/I7w7WQWR">alloying</a> of metals and metal <a href="/facts/Craft/eoP1sKrY">crafting</a> by <a href="/facts/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas/LG2r6wXm">Indigenous peoples of the Americas</a> prior to European contact in the late 15th century. Indigenous Americans had been using native metals from ancient times, with gold artifacts from the <a href="/facts/Andean/a4wlgG3e">Andean</a> region being dated to 2155–1936 BC,
and <a href="/facts/North_America/djNjCQIl">North American</a> copper artifacts being dated to approximately 5000 BC.
The metal would have been <a href="/facts/Native_metal/gsbV9m3h">found in nature</a> without the need for <a href="/facts/Smelting/Ghdvhlga">smelting</a>, and shaped into the desired form using hot and cold hammering without chemical alteration or <a href="/facts/Alloy/I7w7WQWR">alloying</a>. As of 1999, "no one has found evidence that points to the use of melting, smelting and casting in prehistoric eastern North America."(p 136)
</p><p>In <a href="/facts/South_America/PhrFEMk7">South America</a> the case is quite different. Indigenous South Americans had full <a href="/facts/Metallurgy/1SANyxX4">metallurgy</a> with smelting and various metals being purposely alloyed. <a href="/facts/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Mesoamerica/79b8Trbn">Metallurgy in Mesoamerica</a> and western Mexico may have developed following contact with South America through Ecuadorian marine traders.
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Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America open-in-new

Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America