Archeologists uncovered in a 4,000-year-old burial site (Jiskairumoko) southwest of Lake Titicaca, Peru what appears to be a golden artifact, the oldest discovered to date in the Americas. The discovery led to the conclusion that the Andes population was using gold in their metalworking, which usually should represent a sign of wealth and high status in a society.

However, the discovery of a golden necklace in a burial site belonging to people whose main occupations were hunting and gathering suggests that there is a longer story to gold working and that gold was present in undeveloped societies, before it came to represent the higher classes in more complex societies. Up until this point, none of the sites where gold works were uncovered belonged to the simplest of societies, but rather to societies capable of generating surpluses, and where gold was a form of luxury.

The artifact was uncovered near the base of an adult cranium, and the circular position of the nine gold beads and 11 coarse greenstone circular beads suggested this could have been a necklace. The C14 analysis of a fragment of burned wood found below the mandible in the burial site dated the discovery to approximately 2155 years B.C., which was consistent with all the other radiometric dates from the site.

Unlike the Mina Perdida site, also in the Andes, which was believed to be the oldest site with golden artifacts until now, the object at Jiskairumoko points to the modification of native gold, with more primitive methods than in Mina Perdida and to a 600-year difference.

The study, which was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the University of Missouri, concludes that “the gold from Jiskairumoko … provides new insight into the emergence of Andean metalworking and supports the concept of the early appearance of multiple, independent metalworking technologies focused on native materials, especially gold.”

In a simple society like that of Jiskairumoko, the gold necklace signified the prestige of its wearer. The “golden” prestige later came to be restricted to elite members of the society only, but this is not the case here. “These data suggest that the cold hammering of native gold nuggets may be one of the earliest technologies used to fashion objects for status display in those areas of the world in which social and political complexity emerged,” scientists said.