Pre-Columbian Mining and metallurgy in the Argentinean Northwest

This paper synthetizes what we know so far about pre-Columbian mining and metallurgical activities, during pre-Inka and Inka times, in the present-day territory of Jujuy province (Argentina). To do so, we analyze the extractive and productive contexts that we and other scholars have studied in the three eco-regions of the province, in order to identify the direct and indirect evidences of mining, smelting and manufacture of metal objects. Based on the results, we state that despite the availability of metalliferous minerals in the province, the pre-Columbian mining activities have not reached a large scale, neither in extent nor in intensity, and they would have been carried out mainly in the Puna and in an area of the Sierras subandinas. There is evidence of metallurgical production in the Puna as well as in the Cordillera Oriental, especially in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, which dates from pre-inka Late period (second millennium AD) and Inka times and shows the use of gold, silver, copper, tin and their alloys, and the consumption of metallic artefacts in diverse contexts. The Inka conquest would have generated certain modifications in the organization and access of raw materials, but not in the production techniques.