The strange case of the earliest silver extraction by European colonists in the New World.
other · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 17360699.
- Also identified by PMC identifier 1805524.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
La Isabela, the first European town in the New World, was established in 1494 by the second expedition of Christopher Columbus but was abandoned by 1498. The main motive for settlement was to find and exploit deposits of precious metals. Archaeological evidence of silver extraction at La Isabela seemed to indicate that the expedition had located and tested deposits of silver-bearing lead ore in the Caribbean. Lead isotope analysis refutes this hypothesis but provides new evidence of the desperation of the inhabitants of La Isabela just before its abandonment.
Medical subject headings
- Lead
- Mining
- Silver
- Sulfides