Resumen

SERRANO, Carlos. La Actividad Minera en el Cerro Rico y la Ribera. Rev. Met. UTO [online]. 2010, n.29, pp. 5-18. ISSN 2078-5593.

The main objective of the present work, is to show the three most important stages of the mining and the technological history of the Potosi city, connected with the effects that it has had with the environment. So, the chronological space comprises of the whole period Spanish-viceroyalty; that is, the one closely bound to the silver exploitation and its prolongation in the republic, and also with the silver-plated; the tin exploitation (in some moment Bolivia was the first world-wide producer) and in a smaller scale of the bismuth-wolfram and the exploitation of zinc-lead sulfides. Therefore, we are talking about 462 years of activity without interruption supporting positively during this time to the world economy and to the country too, without any doubt. The negative aspect, is that there is some steady pollution for more than four centuries. Another aspect to emphasize is the contribution of Potosi to the metallurgical techniques. It is not the case of the exploitation methods that are still practicing; reminding us the medieval technology described for the saxon physician Georgius Agricola.

Palabras llave : Mining history; extractive metallurgy; environment; silver; Potosí.