ScienceNOW:
When Spanish conquistadors seized the
Inca emperor
Atawalpa in 1532, they demanded an enormous ransom of
silver and gold that took weeks to collect.Such an enormous
stash suggests that the Andean people knew sophisticated
metallurgy, but there has been little evidence to support
this.Now a team of geologists and archaeologists have found
clues that may indicate that these indigenous people refined
gold with
mercury
amalgamation, an important metallurgical technique that is
still in use today.
