Jaredite and Nephite Metallurgy

The word “metallurgy” comes from the Greek “metallon” meaning “metal,” and “ourgia,” meaning “working,” or the “working of metal.” Metallurgy is defined as the branch of science and technology concerned with the properties of metals and their production and purification. In 1828, metallurgy was defined as “the art of working metals, comprehending the whole process of separating them from other matters in the ore, smelting, refining and parting them. It is the operation of separating metals from their ores.
    Historically, there is no question the Jaredites knew and worked in metallurgy, as Moroni abridged, “They did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work” (Ether 10:23).

Nephi taught his people how to work metals: iron, steel, gold, silver and copper

Later, after Lehi landed and Nephi separated himself from his scheming older brothers, he records that “And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance” (2 Nephi 5:15). Almost 600 years later, Mormon writes in his abridgement: “They became exceedingly rich, both the Lamanites and the Nephites; and they did have an exceeding plenty of gold, and of silver, and of all manner of precious metals, both in the land south and in the land north” (Helaman 6:9).
    Thus we might conclude that the Land of Promise is a land that would have ancient use of metallurgy, or smelting of ore to separate the metal from the rock. It should also be noted that Archaeologists claim that metallurgy, the working of metals, began in te Americas in the far south, in ancient Peru and Ecuador around 2155-1936 B.C.
    This dates the activity in Ecuador to the time of the Jaredites, who would have arrived sometime shortly after 2100 B.C. At that time, it is claimed, the metal would have been found in nature without need for smelting techniques and shaped into the desired form using heat and cold hammering techniques without chemically altering the metal by alloying it.
    According to archaeologists, "no one has found evidence that points to the use of melting, smelting and casting in prehistoric in eastern North America, nor in Mesoamerica." However, in South America, the case is quite different. Indigenous South Americans had full metallurgy with smelting and various metals being purposely alloyed. At a later date, metallurgy in Mesoamerica and Western Mexico developed from contacts with South America through Ecuadorian marine traders.
    Archaeologists also claim that “The ancient Peruvians practiced a more advanced technology in the mastery of gold, silver, copper, and alloy metallurgy than others in the Americas, once other areas began to use metals, which in Mesoamerica, was not before 900 AD. Even then, Peruvian metal work was far superior to that of Mesoamerica.
    Archaeologist also claim that metal smiths in Peru worked gold, silver, and copper, demonstrated “a very fine workmanship.” And according to others, “A united separate culture arose on the northern half of the Peruvian coast, and it was within this culture that the use of metals really developed beyond the gold-working of the old cupisnique people, who it is claimed flourished along what is now Peru’s northern Pacific Coast. Between 1500 and 200 BC.”

This Cupisnique Culture, is considered one of the most definitive and influential societies that existed in the Jequetepeque Valley of Peru. Their influence reached Cajamarca, Chavin, and the northern highlands. The Cupisnique archaeological sites include several settlements in Puemape on the coast, Limoncarro in the middle valley, Montegrande and Tembladera in the Upper Valley, and Kuntur Wasi in San Pablo.
    Two traditions (separate cultures) seem to have developed alongside each other, one in northern Peru and Ecuador, which would have been the Jaredites much earlier, and another in the Altiplano region of southern Peru, which would have been the Nephites in the Cuzco and later Lima areas. Evidence for this comes from copper slag recovered at several sites, with the ore itself possibly coming from the south Chilean-Bolivian border.
    Extensive use of "portable" smelting kilns in the vicinity of Puma Punku, Tiwanaku, and at three additional sites in Peru and Bolivia to manufacture, in situ, "I" beams as connectors to large stone blocks during the construction process represent a seemingly anomalous function for metal smelting. The reported chemical analysis of these metal pours is 95.15% copper, 2.05% arsenic, 1.70% nickel, .84% silicon and .26% iron. The estimated date of these pours lies between 8000 B.C. and 500 A.D.
    As can be seen, the South American metal working developed in the Andean region of modern Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina, with gold and copper being hammered and shaped into intricate objects, particularly ornaments. Further evidence for this type of metal work comes from the sites at Waywaka, Chavin, and Kotosh, and seems to have been spread throughout Andean societies by 1000 B.C. to 200 B.C.
    Evidence for fully developed smelting, however, appears with the Moche culture (northern coast 200 B.C. 400 AD). The ores were extracted at shallow deposits in the Andean foothills, and believed to have been smelted at nearby locations, evidenced in the actual metal artifacts and from ceramic vessels depicting the process, which is believed to have occurred in adobe brick furnaces with at least three blow pipes to provide the air flow needed to reach the high temperatures.

Pre-Columbian artifacts of Peru with similar images appearing on ceramics, textiles, gold, and stone work, from as far north as Puerto Eten 11 miles south of Chiclayo, to as far south as the Nazca Valley drainage. Perhaps based on similar ideologies, its images and symbols appear on local ceramics, textiles, gold, and stone work

According to archaeologists, there is no question that metallurgy in the Andean area of South America was far superior to anything found elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and rivaled that of the Old World. Indigenous South Americans had full metallurgy with smelting and various metals being purposely alloyed, while metallurgy in Mesoamerica developed from contacts with South America. In addition, extensive use of smelting kilns has been found in the area of Lake Titicaca (Puma Punku and Tiahuanacu) as early as 8000 B.C. through 500 A.D.
    The placement of these workshops in the administrative sections of cities suggests the high importance the people put upon metal and those who worked it. It is interesting to note that the type of copper-arsenic alloys, enargite is only found in the high sierra of the central Andes, while arsenopyrite is also available in some of the north coast valleys.
    Dorothy Hosler, Professor of Archeology and Ancient Technology at MIT, who has carried out field work in the Andean zone of South America for 30 years, has as her specialty the prehistoric Andean metallurgy. From her field and laboratory studies, Andean metallurgy emerges as a technology quintessentially Andean, distinct from the early metallurgy of western Asia, Europe, and Africa. She is considered an expert in ancient American metallurgy and especially of that found in ancient prehistoric Peru.

In addition, MIT Professor, Heather Nan Lechtman (left), has spent 43 years in the Andean zone of South America where she has investigated the prehistoric systems of technology Andean peoples developed to manage a highly varied and high stress environment. Her area of specialty is prehistoric Andean metallurgy. Professor Lechtman’s research has demonstrated that the Andean zone of South America was the locus of what became, over time, a pan-Andean set of metallurgical technologies that developed first in the Andes and later was transmitted to societies farther north.
    As she states, “Although Andean metallurgy stressed the non-utilitarian quality of its products, it was among the most sophisticated of prehistoric metallurgical traditions in the Old World and the New, and it was through the very technologies involved in their manufacture that those same non-utilitarian metal objects provided the Peruvian with an important means of perpetuating their normative power.”
    These highly advanced techniques have been used for centuries in the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Africa, China, and Greece along with the Andes of South America. Obviously, it is the gold, silver, copper and brass that survived because such items are free from the problems of rust, cankering, and corrosion of other metals.
    Once again, while Andean metallurgy dates back thousands of years into BC times, metallurgy in Mesoamerica did not begin to work in metals until after 900 AD, though John L. Sorenson of BYU claims that figure should be 600 BC. As for the Heartland, ancient peoples there worked in Copper, but it was shaped from native copper and was not smelted—meaning their work did not include what is called Metallurgy, though they worked extensively with copper.
    Only Andean South America was using smelting process for their metallurgy dating back to Jaredite times and continuing through he Nephite period.