Abstract

Since ancient times, there have been metalworking operations in northern South America (NSA). How far these activities' air emissions have travelled, though, is still a mystery. The availability of trustworthy and continuous records is crucial to better understand the timing of past metal deposition in South America because it offers an alternative to discontinuous archives and provides proof of global trace metal transport. At the moment, the timing of metallurgical activities is estimated from scant archaeological discoveries. We demonstrate that over the past 4200 years, human metals have likely been released into the atmosphere and moved from northern South America (NSA) to southern South America (SSA) using a peat record from Tierra del Fuego. The time back-trajectories from NSA to SSA in the present day are consistent with these findings [1]. We also demonstrate that any archaeological evidence for metallurgical activity predates what appear to be anthropogenic Cu and Sb emissions. As byproducts of Inca and Spanish metallurgy, lead and sulphide were also released into the atmosphere, whereas local coal-gold rushes and the industrial revolution contributed to local contamination. We propose that pre-Hispanic metallurgical operations began earlier than previously thought based on archaeological evidence, and that metals were moved from NSA to SSA via air emissions [2].