GEORG PETERSEN (1898-1985): MINING AND METALLURGY IN ANCIENT PERU

Georg Petersen was born in Germany in 1898 and obtained his Ph.D. in geology from the National University of Kiel in 1922. He arrived in Perú in 1924 with a contract to manage the Zorritos oilfield, northern Perú. His extensive bibliography, published in a newly mastered language, includes research on copper, gold, petroleum, salt, and tin occurrences, as well as reports on the archaeology, botany, climate, and history of Perú.

In 1952, he began teaching economic geology at the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería. Then, in 1970, with encouragement from archaeologist and friend, Duccio Bonavia, Petersen published Minería y Metalurgia en el Antiguo Perú. Petersen's book, essentially a De Re Metallica for the New World, includes 10 chapters, extensive endnotes, 13 black and white figures, many of which are photographs taken in the field by Petersen, and 22 tables that provide forward-thinking archaeometric data on ancient gold, copper, silver, and platinum artifacts as well as analytical data on smelter scoria and other geoarchaeological materials from Perú, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. His book blends archaeology, art history, biology, Colonial exploration, ethnohistory, geology, metallurgy, and the mining technology of the ancient Andes. Publication of Petersen’s book, in English, as Geological Society of America Special Paper 467, will help spread his academic and applied knowledge of the importance and use of mineral resources in the ancient Andes to a broad new audience.