The First Highways · Episode 5 of 12 · 22 min
El Dorado's Supply Chain: Isthmo-Colombian Gold
El Dorado began as a ritual on a highland lake, not a golden city, and the goldsmiths behind the legend were among the finest in the Americas. Colombian and Panamanian peoples mastered the tumbaga alloy and lost-wax casting, and their techniques spread north toward a Mesoamerica that adopted metal late.
Who's who
- Dorothy Hosler+2 more episodesarchaeometallurgist who showed West Mexican metals came from South America
- Warwick Brayarchaeologist who wrote The Gold of El Dorado
- Samuel K. Lothropled the Harvard Peabody excavations at Sitio Conte
- J. Alden Masonled the Penn Museum excavations at Sitio Conte
- Gonzalo Jimenez de QuesadaSpanish leader who reached the Muisca highlands in 1537
Where it happens
- Lake Guatavita, Colombia+1 more episodesacred lake behind the El Dorado legend
- Sitio Conte, Cocle, Panamaelite cemetery rich in gold and ceramics
- Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombiahomeland of the Tairona
- Middle Cauca Valley, Colombiahome of Quimbaya lost-wax masterworks
Timeline
- c. 500 BCEgoldworking is well established in Colombia's Cauca valley
- c. 450-900 CESitio Conte serves as an elite cemetery
- c. 600-800 CEmetallurgy arrives in West Mexico
- c. 1295-1410 CEthe Muisca raft is cast
- 1537-1538Spanish reach the Muisca highlands and the gilded man story mutates into El Dorado
- 1969Muisca raft is found in a cave near Pasca
Still debated
Scholars accept that West Mexican metallurgy was introduced from the south, but how many times metalworking was independently invented in the Americas remains open. Neither one-source diffusion nor invention everywhere is thought to fit.
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