Copper is a metal more easily smelted than iron and has qualities of malleability, reasonable tensile strength, and corrosion resistance that made it commonly used in preindustrial times (Forbes, 1950) (Video 1). From the standpoint of the Middle American peoples, it was the most important metal and played a prominent role in the prehispanic metallurgy of Ancient Mexico (Hosler, 1994). Today, copper is one of the cornerstones of the Mexican economy.
Making history: malachite and copper (3:52 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrBw4L490Y
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bargalló, M. (1955). La Minería y la Metalurgia en la América Española durante la Época Colonial. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Barrett, E. M. (1987). The Mexican colonial copper industry. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Barton, M. D., Staude, J.-M. G., Zürcher, L., & Megaw, P. K. M. (1995). Porphyry copper and other intrusion-related mineralization in Mexico. In F. W. Pierce & J. G. Bolm (Eds.), Porphyry copper deposits of the American Cordillera: Arizona Geological Society Digest 20, pp. 487–524.
Cardenas-Vargas, J. (1993). Monografia Geol6gico-Minera del Estado de Sonora: Pachuca. Hidalgo: Consejo de Recursos Minerales.
Forbes, R. J. (1950). Metallurgy in antiquity: A notebook for archaeologists and technologists. Leiden: Brill.
Grinberg, D. (1996). Técnicas Minero-Metalúrgicas en Mesoamérica. In M. Cervantes (Ed.), Mesoamérica y los Andes (pp. 427–471). México: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores de Antropología Social.
Gorenstein, S., & Pollard, H. P. (1983). The Tarascan civilization: A late prehispanic cultural system (p. 28). Nashville: Publications in Anthropology.
Horcasitas de Barros, M. L. (1981). Una Artesanía con Raíces Prehispánicas en Santa Clara del Cobre. México: Colección Etnología, INAH.
Hosler, D. (1988a). Ancient West Mexican metallurgy: South Central American origins and West Mexican transformations. American Anthropologist, 90(4), 832–855.
Hosler, D. (1988b). The metallurgy of ancient West Mexico. In R. Maddin (Ed.), The beginning of the use of metals and alloys (pp. 328–343). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hosler, D. (1994). The sounds and colors of power. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hosler, D. (1995). Sound, color and meaning in the metallurgy of ancient West Mexico. World Archaeology, 27, 100–115.
Maldonado, B. (2006). Preindustrial copper production at the archaeological zone of Itziparátzico, a Tarascan Location in Michoacán, México. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University.
Maldonado, B., & Rehren, T. (2009). Early copper smelting at Itziparátzico, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(9), 1998–2006.
Ostroumov, M., & Corona-Chávez, P. (2000). Yacimientos Minerales en Michoacán: Aspectos Geológicos y Metalogenéticos. Revista Ciencia Nicolaita, 23, 7–22.
Ostroumov, M., Corona-Chávez, P., Díaz de León, J. A., Morales, V., & Cruz J. C. (2002). Taxonomía y Clasificación Cristaloquímica Moderna de los Minerales. Recursos Electrónicos de la Universidad Michoacana. http://smm.iim.umich.mx/catalogo.htm
Perez, A. A. (2011). The mineral industry of Mexico. In U.S. Geological Survey minerals (USGS) yearbook—2011 (pp. 13.1–13.12). Reston: Geological Survey Minerals.
Pollard, H. P. (1982). Ecological variation and economic exchange in the Tarascan State. American Ethnologist, 9(2), 250–268.
Pollard, H. P. (1987). The political economy of Prehispanic Tarascan metallurgy. American Antiquity, 52(4), 741–752.
Pollard, H. P. (1993). Tariacuri’s legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan state. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Pollard, H. P. (1997). Recent research in West Mexican archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research, 5(4), 345–384.
Uribe, J. A. (1996). Minería de Cobre en el Occidente del México Prehisànico: Un Acercamiento Historiográfico. Revista de Indias, LVI, 207, 297–332.
Warren, J. B. (1991). El Diccionario Grande de la Lengua de Michoacán, II Tomos. Morelia: Fimax.
Suggested Websites
Production and Distribution of Copper around the World (with maps). http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/production-and-distribution-of-copper-around-the-world-with-maps/25468/
Mining in Mexico. http://www.infomine.com/countries/SOIR/mexico/
USGS – Copper: Statistics and Information. http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/copper/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Maldonado, B. (2014). Copper Production in Mexico. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_9872-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_9872-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-3934-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities