Potosí Revisited

This article discusses the pre-Hispanic exploitation of the Potosi mine in the light of metallogenic, political, technical, and religious backgrounds. The methodology combines ore deposits knowledge, archives documents, linguistic approach, and archaeology. Since the limnological studies of Abbott and Wolfe (2003), we know that Potosi was exploited around the Tiwanaku collapse (1000AD-1100AD). In this paper, we take into account the magmatic-metallogenic processes and different types of mineralizations that led to this mining wealth. In 1545, two miners of Porco discovered the shrine and the felines that guarded it in the summit at the richest part of the Cerro. The question arises of linking this “discovery” to the Andean knowledges of metallogenic characteristics. Andeans related mineralogical understanding to religious beliefs, as it is obvious in various documents of extirpations of idolatries studied in this article. In the context of the dramatic Spanish conquest, it turns out that Potosi, dedicated to the Sun, has been hidden for religious taboos, but that the complex pre-Hispanic shamanic cults still active, were part -of the continuity of the exchanges with the rich god who gives the silver. During the active Inca period of exploitation, those cults were integrated and partially reformulated for the needs of the political cosmovision of the state. The name of the god of Potosi was a pukina word. The Collas, a pukina speaking chiefdom, heir of Tiwanaku, owned Potosi and the gold mines of Carabaya prior to the Incas. In all those mines, they worshiped a feline. These old cults lead to propose a religious Tiwanaku origin, linked to the cult of island of the Sun, and to a long-lasting series of worships

Ancient history · Archaeology · Cartography · Chiefdom · CONQUEST · Ethnology · Geography · Political science · Politics · Summit · History · Latin American history and culture · Law

• Early human foraging paleoecology in the highlands of Potosí, Bolivia

  Open Access•J M Capriles, Juan Albarracin-Jordan et al.•Quaternary Environments and Humans•2024

  Añadir item

• Mita, género y colonialismo

  Open Access•Xochitl Guadalupe Inostroza Ponce•Fronteras de la historia•2025

  Añadir item

• Rethinking Human–Animal Interaction in the Central Andes

  C Delaere, Juan Villanueva Criales•Ñawpa Pacha•2026

  Añadir item