Cerro Rico and Potosí Mining Archaeology

Record summary

Cerro Rico and colonial Potosí formed one of the largest silver-producing complexes in the early modern world after the mid-sixteenth-century discovery of silver. Archaeological and historical work examines mines, mills, water systems, smelting, labor compounds, Indigenous tribute, African slavery, and global exchange. The lead matters because it links landscape transformation to colonial political economy and material technologies. Important uncertainties involve changing mining landscapes, incomplete preservation, and how archaeological remains should be integrated with administrative records and Indigenous histories.