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Reviews
| Indian Mining of Lead for Use in Rio Grande Glaze Paint (Report of the AS-5 Bethsheba Project Near Cerrillos, New Mexico). By Richard A. Bice, Phyllis S. Davis, and William M. Sundt. Albuquerque, N.M.: Albuquerque Archaeological Society, 2003. xviii+197 pp., illus., maps, tables, diags., notes, appens., bibl.
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The fashioning of the world by one's hands is certainly a hallmark of all indigenous preindustrial cultures as well as early industrial cultures, yet rarely does one think of preindustrial metal use and metallurgy in the context of North American indigenous cultures. Indian Mining of Lead for Use in Rio Grande Glaze Paint capably tells the story of the discovery, recovery, use, and distribution of lead ores for handmade ceramic paints. The book is a report from the Albuquerque Archaeological Society (AAS), which sponsored and conducted the lengthy investigation of the Bethsheba Mine project. This report includes not only a meticulous description of finds but also is linked with important ongoing work having to do with the geological sourcing of lead glazes and their distributional ranges as components of Pueblo pottery glazes. As far as is known, this volume is the first recorded excavation and publication about indigenous lead mining, use, and distribution. It is the first published report on Spanish-era lead or silver/lead mining in the United States. The report is a classic example of the "weekend dig" experience known and beloved by many avocational archaeologists. In addition, the report itself is an excellent example of the sophisticated contributions to archaeological and historical technical understanding that can be derived from avocational efforts.
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Volunteers and members of AAS who investigated the lead and silver mines known as Bethsheba near Cerrillos, New Mexico, for around 17 years were assisted at the close by several professional archaeologists. AAS undertook a re-excavation of a 70-meter trench originally mined by indigenous people who followed an exposed, eroded vein of lead ore up a gentle slope. After re-excavation, the original trench was revealed to be approximately 62 meters long, having an average width of 1 meter, and reaching a maximum depth of 8 meters. The sites of human activity there evidenced 700 years of lead and silver ore extraction in at least four separate cultural episodes, culminating in industrial-scale mining explorations during the 1970s. It is the two earliest mining episodes, those of the indigenous people of the San Marcos pueblo and those of Spanish colonial days, that are the primary stories told. These episodes began as early as AD 1300 and extended until the close of the 18th century. Each cultural episode had its own technical and economic purposes for lead recovery and use. The San Marcos people used the lead as a critical ingredient in lead-based pottery glazes, which became commonplace there by about AD 1350. The Spanish colonial miners wanted lead primarily for ammunition. There may have been other purposes as well because the ore at Cerrillos included silver.
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The body of the report relates the methods of excavation and recovery and describes field evidence in detail, including stratigraphic data and meticulous detail about recovered artifacts. The artifacts are of two major kinds: stone tools used to recover lead ores and ceramics that allow cross-dating of strata. By linking sherd decorative styles with specific strata, the analysts were able to create a careful chronology of mining events, including evidence for estimating the intensity, frequency, and regularity of mining efforts. The authors make estimates of total indigenous effort in mining and the quantities of lead recovered. The trench length and dimensions suggested that indigenous efforts removed a total of around 620 tons of material, yielding an amount of lead sufficient to provide glazes for as many as 250,000 ceramic vessels or about 600 per year over the course of the vein's years of use. The distribution of artifacts associated with the trench, as well as the deposition of erosion strata within it, suggested occasional yet regular extraction of ore by teams of miners over long centuries of repeated use.
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The chapter entitled "Mining Periods and Dating" is the significant interpretive chapter of the report that focuses upon determining the stratigraphic positions and, therefore, the ages of three kinds of features excavated: the original mining trench, three vertical shafts that intersected it, and several small smelter remains. The stratigraphic positions of the shafts as well as the smelter remains, established upon detritus thrown out of the trench by indigenous miners, dated them to the Spanish colonial period. The analysis yielded a complete chronology of site use as follows:
| Prehistoric |
AD 1300–1580 |
| Early Colonial |
AD 1580–1750 |
| Late Colonial/Mexican |
AD 1750–1848 |
| Territorial/Statehood |
AD 1848–1971 |
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The smelting evidence is compelling but was incomplete for answering complex questions about technological applications and developments. For instance, whether the smelting activities were restricted to obtaining lead or were the first steps in recovering silver through cupellation could not be determined. An interesting detail of the smelting investigation revealed the presence of San Marcos-tempered pottery within the context of the smelters as probable catchment vessels. The pottery bore the evidence of Spanish-inspired glazes rather than those associated with strictly local traditions. This means that at least at Cerrillos smelting activities occurred following the period of technical influence of the Spanish on lead extraction methodologies. The actual associations of pottery with the smelting remains reveal eight separate smelting events during Spanish colonial times, beginning in the 17th century—a valuable contribution to the general understanding of smelting in early America, as it connects textual data with field data on actual smelting activities and their material remains.
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There are some flaws in organization in the volume that detract from its impact. The discussion of smelting, which is potentially useful because it draws together a range of archival sources and bodies of field evidence, merits an extended interpretive chapter of its own. As it stands this material is a bit lost in the middle of a chapter about the chronology of the site's features. On the nitpicking level are some failures of editing, e.g., a few paragraphs out of place and some sundry typographic errors that, as always, distract from a consistent flow of information. The photos and the paper upon which they are reproduced are fair but not outstanding. When material evidence is the focus of the data and argument, such production factors need special attention.
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| This report is a significant addition to the standing literature about indigenous mining of a range of metals, to the understanding of the technical means of early metal ore mining, and to the interpretive means by which the practices of preindustrial small-scale smelting may be evidenced and understood. It is also a memorial to the amount of meticulous work accomplished by the volunteers of AAS who began a (presumed) small weekend project with enthusiasm and, encountering its actual size and complexity, carried its investigation through to completion, analysis, and publication. In addition, the Cerrillos volume links excavated data with (1) ongoing work in sourcing lead ores through lead isotope studies, with (2) understanding trade in ceramics by identifying myriad lead sources, and with (3) researching additional lead mining sites in the Cerrillos region. In this way, the work of dedicated amateurs is vital to the continuation of archaeological work and technological understanding in the region. |
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