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posted by Fnord666 on Friday February 10 2017, @11:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the this-ice-has-a-metallic-taste dept.

South America's mining industry supplies half the world with copper. The world's largest mines are located in the Andes. Yet just when copper production began there has remained unclear, until now. Very few artefacts from the early high cultures in Peru, Chile, and Bolivia have been preserved. Now, however, researchers of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Villigen, Switzerland, are on the trail of this mystery. Through analysis of ice from the Illimani glacier in the Bolivian Andes, they found out that by around 700 BC, copper was already being mined and smelted in South America. Their findings are published in Scientific Reports, an online journal of the Nature Publishing Group.

In South America, copper has been mined and smelted for around 2700 years. This has now been determined by researchers of the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Villigen, Switzerland, through analyses of glacier ice from Bolivia. Copper mining in South America has enormous importance: Chile and Peru are the two largest copper producers in the world; Chile alone accounts for more than 30 percent of global copper production. Yet the beginnings of this essential industrial sector have remained obscure. The only certain evidence came from the time of the Moche culture, which flourished on the northern coast of Peru between 200 and 800 AD. Numerous copper objects from this culture, such as jewelry and ritual tools, have been found. From earlier times, however, there are few finds and no written records.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday February 11 2017, @01:25AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 11 2017, @01:25AM (#465650) Journal

    IE, what happens after death

    Internet Explorer after death? This has to be the hell, right?
    (not even the demo version of it)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2