| This paper is a study of the politics and economics of expansive exploitation caused by the necessity and desire for natural resources and material commodities, i.e., gold, silver, gemstones, and pearls, by western Europeans in the Americas during the tumultuous period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is an interpretive artistic endeavor, from the site of production, that uses as comparison ancient body adornment and modern facsimile pieces that are constructed using variations of cumulative metalsmithing techniques from ancient to modern times. The paper also includes a metallurgical section that deals with an ancient Amerindian metal that is no longer in use. It concludes with the author's statements comparing modern humanity with humanity of the late Renaissance---we have the same basic desires and needs five hundred years later. |
