A long-haired llama made of crimped silver
sheet metal, 23.8 centimeters (9.4 inches)
tall. These special llamas provided
unusually long, fine fiber. American Museum
of Natural History, NY, Catalogue No.
B/1619, Courtesy of the Division of
Anthropology, American Museum of Natural
History.Metallurgical technologies that involved mining metallic ores, the extraction of
the metallic component of the ores through smelting, and the subsequent
production of metal objects from solid metal ingots or by casting molten metal
into ceramic or stone molds, were initiated and highly developed by Moche
societies located on the north coast of Peru (see Chronology, pre-Inca). During
the prior Initial Period and Early Horizon Andean smiths practiced
metalworking, taking advantage of the malleability of native metals (metals that
occur in the earth’s crust in metallic, not in mineral, form) to shape them into
objects. Native metals included gold, silver, copper, and native alloys such as
electrum (the natural alloy of gold and silver).
Central Andean metallurgical technologies centered on the metals gold, silver,
and copper, and on the binary (2-element component) and ternary (3-element
component) alloys these metals form when melted. Both Andean and
Mesoamerican pre-Hispanic metallurgies were nonferrous; iron ores were not