Date of Award
6-2008
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Anthropology
First Advisor
Dr. Ann Miles
Second Advisor
Dr. Catherine J. Julien
Third Advisor
Dr. Mary Van Buren
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
Porco, Bolivia, is known as the source of silver which ornamented the Inca temple of Coricancha, and as the seat of the earliest Spanish mining operations in the Andes. The colonial silver processing site of Ferro Ingenio, on the outskirts of Porco, is comprised of domestic and industrial structures, constructed and used over multiple occupations. Ferro Ingenio is the best preserved and most complete site of its kind in the Porco region and the first Andean stamp-mill ever to be excavated. This investigation uses ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence to examine the organization and the changing social roles of colonial labor. I seek to understand these political and economic dynamics through an exploration of the place of Potosi's silver mining region in the burgeoning global economy of the first century of Spanish colonialism in the Andes. Contributing to the field of Andean historical archaeology, Ferro Ingenio provides a glimpse into the complex dynamics of labor and empire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Recommended Citation
Weaver, Brendan J. M., "Ferro Ingenio: An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical View of Labor and Empire in Colonial Porco and Potosi" (2008). Masters Theses. 3966.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3966