steel and iron weaponry of the american natives.........

[ausjulius]

ok , this one has realy been bugging me for some time..

along time ago while flipping through a book on native americans i came across a chapter on native metal work....
anyway one section caught my eye.. it was about iron ,and particulary steel weaponry and armor of a group of indians along the west coast of canada,

anyway from the pictures they showed the weaponry was rather sophisticated,, short dagger like . swords, and daggers and long knives, aswell as some armor and helmets,,,
the swords had a blade like the eairly roman daggers with a wedge shape , and were with many fullers,, the pommels of the swords had a spike proturding about 5 cm or so,, , the helmets had some sort of visor,,
it even showed sketched of the techniques used by the indians when fighting,...

is said the mijority of these bades were made form hardened steel of an unknown origin , as the blades were encountered when the english traders arrived,, there was a presumption they may have receved the ability from russian traders or others coming from the russian far east......???

anyway they were no simple knives shown, some had very intercate fullers in the blades , and the handles were very decorated....
i recall in the text it stated the natives developed in the 19th centuary a strange cult.. someting by the name of potash.. or something quite like the spelling..
which involved the destroying of ones possessions ,around the trading of some copper plates, which were viewed , by the local to have great value,...

anyway,, ive realy not been able to find anything on this...... nothing atall,
did i imagine it all?? can any of you people enlighten me on this topic???

[ausjulius]

just tryed invain again , the best i could find was a book:
Native North American Armor, Shields, and Fortifications,

no metion of metal weaponry,, .......
this is driving me nuts, i remember the book even had a good selection of fotos.. and stated that many exsamples were preserved in canadian museams today... along with severla of the copper plated traded by the natives.........????

[Jeff D]

Hi Ausjulius,

Try searching under "Tlingit", you should be able to find some information. Also there is some information in Swords and Hilt Weapons by Barnes and Noble. Chapter 16 deals with pre-conquest America.
Hope this gets you started.

Jeff

[Andrew]

I am unaware of any Native American steel or iron weapons predating the arrival of Europeans (16th century). By that time, the majority of Native American technology was stone-age, with the noteable exception of Tlingit copper-working in the Pacific Northwest.

A nice book is Colin F. Taylor's, Native American Weapons, Salamander Books, Ltd., United Kingdom (2001) ISBN 0-8061-3346-5.

[ausjulius]

hi "Tlingit" might be it...... anyway i remember the swords were quitly complicated... at the base of the blade where the fullers began the formed a face or pattern , looking quite alot like the pacific islanders tattoos,,, looked like it was forged into the blade....... andway i recall that the writer specualted the origins of the native metal working were russian , or were brought from some parts of siberia or russias far east colonies... which makes sence as the natives in the east all had the ability to work steel,, and were many times froced to work for the russians in the americas

[ausjulius]

http://www.alaskanativeartists.com/tlingit_body_armor.htm

seems somebody is making reproductions of theTlingit body armor,.....

Potlatch was the term i remember now....... but none of the Tlingit look as the knives i saw pictures....
if i recall correctly the daggers were more as a kindjal,, and had a secound blade on the pommel, as on some african daggers and swords..
they also had multi fullered blades........

anyone seen anything like this????????? .....

[Andrew]

[url]
anyone seen anything like this????????? .....


Yes. Tlingit. :)

If possible, check out the book I mentioned above.

[ausjulius]

thanks i shall.. but there isnt mant book shops around here... ill keep an eye out.....

[ausjulius]

yup , thats it , i recognise the knif eon the cover :) ........
n ow makes me wounder where they got the skills to make these with such complicated blades........

[tom hyle]

Tlinglits were working copper on their own, as were some people around the Great Lakes area, around the Carribean, and in the Andes. I have heard that in northern N America (current USA and Canada) the mining was primarily or solely in the Great Lakes Region. Tlinglit (etc.; the technology is not unique, AFAIK, to one tribe of the region) daggers tend to be midribbed, and fairly sophisticated in their detailing and finishing, and I've certainly seen iron/steel ones, and had presumed them to be 18th/19th C. Of course, as time and research go on it grows increasingly hard to deny pre-Columbus (etc.) contacts between peoples previously considered as isolated/seperated. "Vikings" in N America are cetainly no longer considered a romantic fiction, and much earlier European incursions are probably well indicated, for instance.
The Tlinglit body armour is remarkably similar to a medieval European armour known as a coat of plates. I'm not suggesting a direct relation; Tlinglits (etc.) are quite far from Europe; near (as pointed out) to Siberia, and these are far from the only two armours to fit in this category of resemblance; form following function, perhaps. Just an interesting comparison, is all.

[mross]

I am unaware of any Native American steel or iron weapons predating the arrival of Europeans (16th century). By that time, the majority of Native American technology was stone-age, with the noteable exception of Tlingit copper-working in the Pacific Northwest.

A nice book is Colin F. Taylor's, Native American Weapons, Salamander Books, Ltd., United Kingdom (2001) ISBN 0-8061-3346-5.

I agree with Andrew. Most of what people think of Native American weapons, in particuliar the tomahawk where in fact trade items. Ditto for their knives. Most auctions that deal with Native American artifacts never mention steel weapons. A case inpoint that was in a thread here recently was a knife and sheath from ebay, the knife was not even mentioned. What was for sale was the beadwork decorated sheath. My main intrests are in ancient metallurgy, so it would be nice if the US had a history of it, but so far I have not found any.

[Battara]

Many steel bladed NW Coast knives were made of the traded Russian steel or even made of work out files. Again, as mentioned earlier, these were of the 19th century period. You can also look at older Sotheby's and Butterfield's auctions for these examples.

[David]

Perhaps this is more of what you are looking for. It is one of two daggers made of meteoric ore and is said to go back 10 generations. I believe it is currently in the hands of Harold Jacobs, a Tlingit cultural specialist whose family had been the caretakers of this piece for some time. It was recently returned to his tribe by a museum.The dagger, called Keet Gwalaa (Killer whale dagger) is 27" in length. The copper binding the hilt is on very tight. It appears to be made in two pieces joined at the hilt.

[Tim Simmons]

Copper weapons were at one time in use in pre Colombian North America. In forms unlike Central and South Americas. Okay it is not iron or steel, but I think it is odd that this metallurgy and often exquisite metalwork is so over looked. I have mentioned this book before "Miskwabik, Metal of Ritual, Metallurgy in Precontact Eastern North America" Amelia M. Trevelyan, The University press Of Kentucky. A little academic but not too challenging for the general reader, though I shall not try and quote from it. There is mention of tools and weapons, axes and adzes being large and heavy. I will also avoid the debate as to where this metallurgy originates from. Personally I see no reason why it is not home grown. As metal work was well established I also cannot see why this practice would not easily adopt the new material iron. Here are some of the interesting pics from the book

[David]

Here is another Tlingit dagger, this one made of copper. I am afraid i know less about the origins or dating of this one. It seems to many that you can find many Tlingit blades that are trade blades, but i believe the two examples i have posted were actually forged by the Tlingit.

[Tim Simmons]

This interesting axe is in the Museum Of America, Madrid well worth a visit. Bronze from Peru, with what looks like silver, tin or lead inlay. Bronze implies considerable metallurgy rather than working in copper as bronze is an alloy. So smelting was not an unknown activity. I like the way it mimics a stone axe, I would imagine this was an exceedingly special object, as it is today.

[Tim Simmons]

This is also from the Americas museum in Madrid. I think this is most interesting as it has the same method of attachment to a halft as the axe I post earlier from Wisconsin except this one is bronze. It is 11cm long and reminds me of axes from South Africa. If one is to work on that well trodden path of like forms means it came from somewhere else. Then Zulu sailors went the long way round, or round the cape of good hope and then cape horn and settled in the Andes :D . I prefer to think that some objects are universal and the design comes to a mature form that does not alter where ever one comes from.

[David]

BTW, here's a link to a description of the potlatch. It doesn't involve the destuction of ones possessions, but the giving away of them. Hard to say when the tradition began, but it was banned by both the Canadian and U.S. governments in the late 19th century. That law held in Canada until 1951. :eek:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch

[Jeff D]

Apparently the earliest travellers to the northern west coast found both copper and iron in use. Copper most likely was mined and Iron and steel was probably salvaged from ship wrecks and drifting debris. (Coe, Swords and Hilt Weapons Pg.218). I have accumulated a number of photo's over the years, unfortunately I can't remember all their origins. 1) copper blade, 2) Iron blade 3) Russian bayonet, 4) Sheffield trade blade, 5) double blade.

Jeff

[Flavio]

The last one, double blade, is simply beautiful!!!!

[ausjulius]

realy very attractive knives,
the blade shapes and handle decoration had a very natural look , i find these far mor eattractive than many other ethnic weaponry,, they have somehow a natural , but brutal look :)

very nice daggers,

its interesting that they developed their own style different form the blades they obtained,
would you thhink they had been making them for along time , otherwise theyed be much mor einfluenced by the trade blades,

it is also interesting that these seem made fistly for fighting not for hunting or general use,

[Tim Simmons]

I am of the opinion that certain native nations in the Americas clearly had considerable knowledge and practice with metals. Some of the knives may have been influenced by more general flint and bone daggers. The arrival of iron and steel just adding to the material these artists had to explore. I recently saw a documentary about a type of flint blade found all over the Americas that was only supposed to be in Europe and people were getting pretty hot under the collar about it. Some interesting hypothesis were battled over but no one would consider universality of function and maturity of design.

[fearn]

Hi All,

Actually, I think there's one interesting fact that's left out of here:

there were two groups of native Americans who did have iron, although they seldom used it for weapons, other than perhaps harpoon, spear, and arrow tips.

Both the Inuit and the Dorset people who preceeded them used iron that they broke off three large meteorites that were found at Cape York. They cold-hammered the iron pieces into useable shapes. In effect, there was an "Arctic iron age" using stone-age technology.

About a month ago, I finished reading McGhee's Ancient Peoples of the Arctic which is a fun book if you like archeology.

Figured I should throw that in there. A bigger puzzle is why no one in the Andes learned how to use iron, given that it's relatively common in the cordillera.

F

[Yanyeidi]

Here's another dagger from Angoon. This was isn't as old as the Killer Whale Dagger. This one is called Xoots Gwalaa (Brown Bear Dagger). It has abalone inlay in the eyes. It was returned to the Bear Clan by a museum in 1999.

[FenrisWolf]

Here's another dagger from Angoon. This was isn't as old as the Killer Whale Dagger. This one is called Xoots Gwalaa (Brown Bear Dagger). It has abalone inlay in the eyes. It was returned to the Bear Clan by a museum in 1999.Say, do you suppose if someone had their geneaology mapped out well enough to trace their ancestry back to medeival times, they could start knocking on the doors of some of the European museums with big arms collections and demanding the return of their cultural heritage? "Yeah, I want that billhook, targe, claymore and dirk, they were all looted from my people after Culloden...." :D

[David]

Say, do you suppose if someone had their geneaology mapped out well enough to trace their ancestry back to medeival times, they could start knocking on the doors of some of the European museums with big arms collections and demanding the return of their cultural heritage? "Yeah, I want that billhook, targe, claymore and dirk, they were all looted from my people after Culloden...." :D

Well, i would image that would depend upon whether or not the weapon had any deep religious, spiritual, and/or cultural significance to the community (tribe, people, nation) from which it was stolen.
Not as likely with a claymore or a dirk... :rolleyes:

[Tim Simmons]

One might have to be a little more sensitive to these matters when it involves art works from communities that live in the same country/nation rather than trophies from foreign wars. I am not from the give back camp in latter case.

[Rick]

Say, do you suppose if someone had their geneaology mapped out well enough to trace their ancestry back to medeival times, they could start knocking on the doors of some of the European museums with big arms collections and demanding the return of their cultural heritage? "Yeah, I want that billhook, targe, claymore and dirk, they were all looted from my people after Culloden...." :D

This is happening in the world of art ; many of WWII's looted paintings are being recovered by their original owners or their descendants.

[David]

One might have to be a little more sensitive to these matters when it involves art works from communities that live in the same country/nation rather than trophies from foreign wars. I am not from the give back camp in latter case.

Tim, daggers like the Brown Bear dagger Yanyeidi shows and the Killer Whale dagger i posted early may very well have been considered "trophies of war" by the Europeans who originally collected them, however these daggers were never meant nor used as weapons of war. They are ritual daggers with deep spiritual significance to their people which i can only image were looted since these daggers would never have been sold or traded to the European invaders. It would indeed be interesting to find out just how they ended up in these museums to begin with. I would not be as quick to advocate giving back battlefield pick-ups to their nation of origin. These daggers fall into a completely different catagory, don't you think? I comment the museums for having the frame of mind to do the right thing in these cases. :)

[Tim Simmons]

David I agree with you completely. One thing why these are possibly a little more specially sensitive is that the looters were equally Americans maybe more so than Europeans in this case. The looting of African palaces is not the same as battle field pick ups. I can justify a refusal to give back as I am in the UK and not African. Not terribly pleasant and a bit blunt. The Native American question is a little more difficult, I think?

[Yanyeidi]

NAGPRA allows for the return of human remains, objects looted from graves, and objects needed and used in ongoing ceremonies, and objects sold or otherwise removed that are communal property and not individually owned.

The Killer Whale Dagger was known as a "slave killer", but it was bragged about as having "never shed any blood." When a slave was brought out to be killed in the name of something this dagger would be pointed at the slave and a thrusting motion made. If the slave wasn't released, "it" would be killed with another dagger called "goox du een", a double ended dagger.

We have no idea how many slaves were put to death by this one dagger. To the family, it is priceless. When the caretaker sold it, it caused a rift in the family for many years.

Khaa dachxhan, a grandchild is usually called to carry the dagger in during our ceremonies, one whose paternal grandfather is from the clan that owns the dagger. Care is made never to point the dagger at anyone and to keep the tip covered.

At times of dispute the caretaker may flash the tip at someone he has a disagreement with,.."to get the point across" that the person is out of order. I've only seen this done once.

As for the Bear Dagger of the Teikhweidi clan, it was probably looted by the U.S. Navy during the shelling and sacking of the village of Angoon on October 18, 1882 in which six children died, all the canoes but one were destroyed, and all the winter supplies burned along with the houses. Several stories of this can be read by typing in these details in search fields.

One old man remembered his grandmother talking about this dagger-- his grandmother as a young woman had survived the bombardment but she didn't know what happened to the dagger afterwards.

Both daggers are back in ceremonial use. Today, they are pointed at the property to be given away as "it is killed." They are back where they belong, with life back in them, in a living culture.

[Tim Simmons]

Wonderful information. The British museum has a lot of NW artifacts collected by Capt Cook. The Gun boat diplomacy is most fascinating to hear of. Are modern versions created?

[David]

Thanks for that detailed and fascinating history Yanyeidi. As you have revealled, sometimes these sacred artifacts are actually sold by the natives themselves, but as community property this not through consent of the tribe, but the through the greed of a single individual.
Tim, my use of the word European was merely to make a distinction between the Indians and the invaders. I merely meant people of European descent. Not just Americans, but also Canadians had a hand in the affairs of NWC indians. Neither was particularly more sympathetic or understanding of native ways and culture.

[Jeff D]

The return of cultural properties to the people that own them are not unique to native North Americans. In 1978 Canada signed the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property act. Essentially this means any signing member countrys can buy back any cultural artifacts if they were illegally removed. So by all means Fenris try to get back your claymore.

Lets face it as nice as that dagger would look on my wall, I would rather it be where Yanyeidi has placed it.

Jeff

[Yanyeidi]

Oops, that should read October 26, 1882.

October 18 is "Alaska Day'-- when Alaska celebrates the purchase of Alaska from Russia-- actually all they owned was inside the stockade at Sitka as they were scared to death of the Tlingits, and only sold trading rights with that small piece of real estate; somehow the U.S. thought they bought the whole territory!

[Jeff D]

somehow the U.S. thought they bought the whole territory!

Don't even mention the pan handle ;)

Jeff

[VANDOO]

THIS TYPE OF DAGGER AS WELL AS MASKS AND DAGGERS FROM THOSE TRIBES HAVE BEEN MADE AND FAKED FOR QUITE A LONG TIME EVER SINCE THERE WAS A MARKET AND DEMAND FOR THEM BY COLLECTORS. AS WITH ANYTHING THAT BRINGS THE BIG MONEY AT A BIG NAME ETHINOGRAPHIC AUCTION SOME GOOD REPLICA/ FAKES SOON SHOW UP. I HAVE SEEN THE DAGGERS ,RATTLES,MASKS AND CLUBS AT FLEA MARKETS AND GUN SHOWS FOR YEARS . THE QUALITY VARRIES BUT IS USUALLY GOOD AND THE PRICES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN TOO HIGH FOR ME. THERE ARE SOME REAL ONES AROUND AS WELL BUT YOU REALLY HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO BUY SAFELY AS THE FAKES CAN BE VERY GOOD AND YOU CAN LOOSE A LOT OF MONEY QUICKLY.

I THINK IF A MUSEUM HAS A REAL TRIBAL DAGGER THAT THE TRIBE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE BACK FOR TRIBAL CEREMONYS OR ANY REASON EXCEPT RESALE OR DESTRUCTION THEY SHOULD HAVE A REPLICA MADE FOR THEIR MUSEUM DISPLAY AND GIVE THE ORIGINAL TO THE TRIBE. THAT WAY EVERYONE CAN BE HAPPY AND AS SO MANY THINGS ON DISPLAY IN MUSEUMS ARE REPLICAS OF THE ORIGINAL WHICH IS IN STORAGE SOMEWHERE ELSE SAFER IT SHOULD NOT MATTER.

SOME OF THE OBJECTS ARE STILL MADE BY ACTUAL DESENDANTS OF THE TRIBE AND ARE ACTUALLY USED IN SOME CEREMONYS AND SOME ARE MADE TO BE SOLD AS HIGH END ART. THERE ARE ALSO OBJECTS WHICH I SUSPECT ARE MADE IN OTHER PLACES BY NON TRIBAL PEOPLE THAT APPEAR ON EBAY AT PRICES EVEN I CAN AFFORD AND THE QUALITY IS NOT BAD SO AT LEAST I HAVE A FEW EXAMPLES OF THE TYPE. ITS KIND OF LIKE BUYING A PLASTIC DINOSAUR TO DISPLAY WITH YOUR REAL FOSSIL TOOTH OR BONE BUT REAL DINO'S ARE HARD TO COME BY THESE DAYS :D

[Emanuel]

Hello,

Yanyeidi, the ritual involving Keet Gwalaa sounds a lot like the talismanic properties attributed to some Indonesian keris - almost word for word - I'm sure some members here will recognize this. It's fascinating how such similar beliefs evolved in such far appart places. I totally agree with Tim's view, I don't see why native American cultures couldn't have reached the same functional conclusions reached by Europeans.
Magnificent works, these! I will look up the first nations collection at the ROM.

Regards,
Emanuel

[David]

Yanyeidi, the ritual involving Keet Gwalaa sounds a lot like the talismanic properties attributed to some Indonesian keris - almost word for word - I'm sure some members here will recognize this. It's fascinating how such similar beliefs evolved in such far appart places.

Hi Emmanuel. I would very much appreciate if you would expand upon this and give actual examples of keris rituals which are the similar to the description for this Tlingit dagger.

[Emanuel]

Hello,

...a lot like the talismanic properties attributed to some Indonesian keris...

Hi David!

I didn't write specifically keris rituals, but there were similar powers attributed to certain keris: one could kill a man simply by pointing the keris at them. I do not recall where I've read these specific words, but I can certainly look it up and post the reference.
Further comparison may be made via the need to keep the dagger hidden or covered - this is true for revered pusaka, no?

In both cases, the talismanic object is dagger-shaped, holds great power of life and death, and is extremely important to his/its owner/tribe.

I will read up on the Tlingit, but I wonder whether copper had a particular magical/powerful significance - in the same vein as the keris pamor I mean.

All the best,
Emanuel

[Tim Simmons]

The term "pointing the bone" to deliver harm comes to mind. When I get my PC running as normal I will post a picture of an Australian tribesmen doing just this.

[Tim Simmons]

"Point The Bone" and bone pointing sticks.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/jamhappy/AB-1.jpg

[Billman]

Ref Meteoric Iron - the Cape York Meteorite from Greenland was used by the locals to make tools:

"The 407-kilogram (897-pound) fragment of Cape York known as the Dog was extensively hammered by Inuit workers—just like the fragment called the Woman, which was found about 30 meters (100 feet) away. Both of these fragments were hammered much more than Ahnighito; experts are not entirely sure why.

According to arctic explorer Robert Peary, who located the three fragments of Cape York now on display in this hall, native Greenlanders recounted a story that these meteorites were once a sewing woman and her dog who were cast from heaven by an evil spirit. Ahnighito was the tent that sheltered them. Some people have speculated that this story may have been invented for Peary's benefit.

HAMMERING AWAY
Although iron meteorites are incredibly hard, the Inuit people successfully chipped off pieces of the fragment known as the Woman using hammerstones made of basalt. The iron was then used to make tools such as knives and harpoons.

When explorer Robert Peary located the Woman in 1894 with the help of an Inuit guide, some 10,000 hammerstones were scattered around the three-ton meteorite. Over the years, Inuit people had carried these basalt stones to the area from far away because the rocks found naturally around the Woman were too soft to break iron."

link: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/meteorites/what/capeyork.php

The theory is that once one tribe had mastered the art of cold working an iron rich meteor the knowledge spread acroos the whole of their territory from Alaska to Greenland - many meteors can be found in the Artic tundra regions...

10,000 hammer stones is a lot of hammering - and potentially a lot of tools or weapons...

31 tonnes is a lot of iron...

link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_York_meteorite

And don't forget the Vikings reached the Americas about 500 years before the official discovery - they had iron and steel tools and the technology of making them - they had established colonies in Greenland by 1000 AD.... and co-existed with the local Inuit for several centuries

[fearn]

hi Billman,

Good to see this again. It's more detail than I noted back in entry #13 or so.

Since we're updating this thread, I think I've got an answer for why the Andeans never got to iron metallurgy. While I think it's possible to smelt iron at high altitude, I'm pretty sure that the Andeans weren't able to make a fire hot enough to smelt iron ore.

There's an interesting, unexplored thread here about the development of progressively hotter fires as a prerequisite for working different metals. Copper needs a hotter fire than gold, bronze hotter than copper, and iron hotter than bronze, etc (up to the current metal-glasses of the last few decades).

Some of this pyrotechnology can be appropriated from potters (a kiln for porcelain is a lot hotter than one for terra cotta. But if a society hasn't developed things like bellows and charcoal (or coke) for fuel, forging iron isn't going to be possible either.

I don't have a lot of data or examples on this, but it's worth exploring. I'm looking for examples of bronze-aged porcelain, and Iron Age people who only made low-fire clay pots. Any thoughts?

Best,

F

Best,

F

[aiontay]

There was limited iron working and blacksmith in the 18th Century, at least in the SE United States. I know of one tomahawk forged by a Chickasaw in the 1760s (apparently the British taught several Chickasaws how to forge).

As for potlatches, I would definitely defer to Yanyeidi, but I will note that gift giving is very much a part of Native American culture. People are always giving away at powwows, ceremonials etc. I always like to point out that on occasions when white people get gifts (birthdays, graduations etc) Indians give gifts.

[archer]

Here's some info on the early metal smiths: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12353
Steve

[Billman]

Wood burning kilns can reach temperatures of 1300 degrees Celsius with natural draft, but require dry timber, preferably hardwood, and often several days to reach this. Wood firing can thus be used for smelting non ferrous metals, and is are hot enough for porcelain. However, to reach temperatures high enough for iron and steel wood is not sufficient, and it needs to be converted to charcoal.

Additionally most charcoal forges or furnaces require forced draft to reach temperatures hot enough to reduce iron ore (typically 1900 degrees C at the bottom, 1300 degrees C at the top), and the additional carbon that is present in charcoal to aid the reduction process.

I guess also at high altitudes there is a need for much greater volumes of air than at sea level. Iron furnaces were present in the French Alps at heights from 500 to 1000m, but the Andes have an average height of over 4000m.
Large volumes of air require some form of mecahnical blower - bellows or fan, and a power source, e.g. water wheel - so most iron and steel works were situated at the lower end of valleys with a good flow of water.

Small pot bellows, as used in the African furnaces can be used to smelt small ingots of iron, enough for one or two blades - but again the fuel is charcoal, not wood.

Iron working tends also to a result of a stable population, not a migrant community as much of North America indian populations were - they tended to pack up their tents and follow the herds of bison - so I guess this explains why it was never developed there, and the Inuit only used meteroric iron...

The stable societies of the central and south Americas, e.g. Maya amd Inca, did have metal working as demonstrated by their gold objects - but it would appear they never progressed to iron smelting. Question - did they have the knowledge of charcoal making?? This may have been a significant limiting factor......

[fearn]

According to this Study (http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/1011/pope/sje2.html), to smelt metal on the altiplano, the Spanish had to adopt an indigenous method of channeling the wind into the furnace, since bellows didn't work. I think they did that on Sri Lanka (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v379/n6560/abs/379060a0.html) as well? The problem is that most of the metals they were smelting were copper and silver from the mines. From what I've been able to find, bronze technology developed by around 1000 CE in the Andes. It's hard to tell how common bronze production was, but the Inkans did use iron bolts to hold some of their stones together, so it wasn't too rare.

Archeologists think the Precolumbian andean peoples used charcoal and possibly coal as fuels (link (http://www.cipstudies.org/brooks.htm)). However, the literature is annoying, because the archeologists refer to burned wood in digs as charcoal, and that makes searching for references a bit harder.

So I guess iron smelting would have been possible, but the Andean peoples never got to it. Just one of those things: prior to Columbus, there were more people living in the high Andes than there are now, so I suspect they simply had other priorities, and lots of tough rocks lying around, free for the taking, when they wanted to hit each other with something hard.

Best,

F

[Tim Simmons]

Not being qualifed this forum gives us ordinary folk a mouth piece. I do not see why small amounts of iron crossed the Bering striaghts long before Columbus and the modern historical notion of Russia. One can research cross Bering trade for other commoderties.

[fearn]

More on Andean metallurgy, not that you asked (UT-Dallas lecture link (www.utdallas.edu/.../Lecture%207-%20Pre-columbian%20Gold%20and%20Silver.pdf)).

As for trade across the Bering Strait, I'd need to know more about what the Yakuts were using, since I'm pretty ignorant about that part of the world.

Best,

F

[Tim Simmons]

Fearn, it seems an odd cut off if these peoples did not trade across the Bering Sea. They most have encounterd iron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukchi_people

[Billman]

It's good to be able to hypothesise on the site.... Apparently about 60,000 tons of meteorite debris hit the earth each year.... mostly dust and rock, and over 2/3 of the earth is sea - but some will be iron or nickel iron that will fall onto the land. Heavy rocks, like the diorite hammerstones of Egypt, used to carve out the granite obelisks, are found sitting on the surface of desert regions - the lighter sands blow away, leaving the heavier rocks behind. It is thus highly probable that meteoric iron can be found in desolate spots such as the Atacama Desert of Peru, high in the Andes, or the tundra regions of the Arctic, where the hard ground prevents penetration of small meterorites. Meteoric iron was used by the ancient Egyptians, who also had the technology to smelt non ferrous metals and create alloys such as bronze, but never smelted iron.

One way of splitting hard rocks into smaller usable fragments is to heat in a fire and quench in cold water - it is not a large step to imagine ancient peoples trying to break 'rocks' of meteoric iron by this method, and failing - but in the process gaining a new material.

Once discovered any supply of such 'naturally occuring' iron would soon be exploited, and probably quickly exhausted - leaving little trace of its presence, apart from the few tools and weapons that still exist.... Equally no traces of slags from iron production would remain, so to all intent and purpose there is no evidence of iron working.. Ultimately, with no more raw materials, the knowledge and skills would disappear... c.f. Damascas steel c1700 when wootz, the source of raw material from India, dried up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

Natural draft furnaces can get very hot, and with the addition of a chimney the draft can be enhanced, so if they had charcoal it is possible that ancient civilisations could melt relatively pure nodules of iron. Smelting of iron ores requires higher temperatures, as the impurities raise the melting point - which is why in the manufacture of wrought iron the bloom containing the slag never reached melting point, but had to have the impurities removed by hammering...

http://www.oldeforester.com/ironintr.htm

Yes speculation, but it could explain some of the anomolies of iron or steel objects turning up where there was no evidence to support local manufacture...

[ausjulius]

More on Andean metallurgy, not that you asked (UT-Dallas lecture link (www.utdallas.edu/.../Lecture%207-%20Pre-columbian%20Gold%20and%20Silver.pdf)).

As for trade across the Bering Strait, I'd need to know more about what the Yakuts were using, since I'm pretty ignorant about that part of the world.

Best,

F

well yakuts have been using steel for a long time and had long bladed weapons swords and pole weapons , metal armor ect...

but they only came recently to such a distant area i think the 1500s, time russians were exploring through the area. a little before maybe... their homeland was further south ,,
their metal working is siberian, but siberia has a long history of metal working,, and all tribes understood it to some degree , some in an advanced level others much less. ,. although some isloated groups used till quite recent stone and bone a lot due to its abundance,, you need mines for metals for regular trade and if you dont there is free things also like stones,
is suspect the Eskimos ancestors came from Siberia with prior metal working knowledge.. as they havent been in north america longer than metal has been used by their folk on the russian side of the water.

[Tim Simmons]

Still the possibility of a certain amount of early trade is not a silly idea.

[fearn]

The best book I've found on this is Ancient People of the Arctic by Robert McGhee. The settlement of the Arctic goes back to 2500 BCE or earlier (Independence culture), and the modern Eskimo spread out of the Alaskan area around 1000 CE. The nice thing about Arctic archeology is that (until climate change does its thing) stuff rarely changes. McGhee shows pictures of artifacts, old campfire rings, and the like, that are over 1000 years old.

The Arctic has been repeopled at least three times from the west (depending on where and how you count repeopling), and there's pretty good evidence that various groups have lost technology that their Siberian ancestors had each time.

One example is the bow. The archeological record pretty strongly indicates that the bow spread out of Siberia, that the Labrador Indians picked it up from the paleo-eskimos around 2000 BCE, and that archery technology spread south and west from Labrador to the rest of the Americas. This comes from dating the switch from spear-points to arrowheads, from noting that the earliest Indian arrowheads known (in Labrador) look like poor copies of the older paleo-eskimo arrowheads to the north, and from noting that arrowheads made out of Ramah chalcedony (a distinctive Labrador stone that works really nicely) were found south to New England and west to Ontario soon thereafter.

However, the widespread Dorset culture (which was replaced by the Eskimos by around 1000 CE) lost the skills of archery that their ancestors undoubtedly had.

The problem with living in the Arctic is that population densities are low, and if a disaster hits a small band of people, it can wipe out the only people who know how to do something. In recent times, this phenomenon was documented among polar Eskimos. One band lost the ability to make bows and kayaks, when all the experts died of the flu.

Rambling story, but it illustrates why iron-working never took hold among the eskimo. There were too few, and they probably couldn't have made a forge if they'd known how (what would they use for fuel?). There may have been trade for Siberian iron tools, but there's no evidence, and the Arctic is a pretty good place to look for such evidence. Even with the groups that used meteoric iron, I haven't found a good picture of one of their blades. Apparently the archeological evidence consists of tool handles missing blades, with rust spots in the permafrost showing where the meteoric blade rusted away.

Hope this clarifies things a bit.

F

[Billman]

One great thing about forums such as these is that they allow pepole to contribute to a common theme from a wide variety of perspectives and experiences - people that in the normal way of life would never meet. Long may they, and this particular forum, continue...

Happy New Year to all from the UK...

[Tim Simmons]

Old thread revisited. Seems I am not the only one to have these thoughts.

https://www.arcus.org/witness-the-arctic/2013/1/article/19624