Gary Coffman wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 22:22:21 +0100, Doug Weller wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 16:53:26 -0400, Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:

Gary Coffman wrote:

[snip]

Casting dumb, smithing smart.

But casting and/or smithing (depending on the materials at
hand) is more smart than just smithing.

Yuri has me killfiled so may not see this, but I am fed up with his going
on about 'smart' and 'dumbing down'. It takes more than intelligence to
develop technologies, and the lack of a technology does not mean that a
group of people are 'dumb'. To say that Native Americans did not develop
electricity, nuclear power, or various types of metalworking does *not*
mean that they are dumb. And it doesn't make the person making the
statement racist.

This is basically just Yuri's need to cast nasturtiums at scholars, this
time archaeologists. He does the same thing with Biblical scholars in other
newsgroups.

I picked up on the fact that he was more interested in axe grinding than
casting.

Gary

Hi, Gary,

My main interest in all this is to investigate Native
American history.

There are apparently hundreds if not thousands of
pre-historic metal furnaces that have been described all
over northern US. So it sure looks like the Native Americans
must have been smelting or melting something. Probably
copper, iron, maybe bronze.

Some non-professional archaeologists have investigated these
things, and published their findings.

I find these things quite fascinating. And yet professional
American archaeologists don't seem to show any interest at
all. They insist on looking the other way. Why do you think
this is so?

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=- http://www.trends.ca/~yuku

Reality is that which, when you stop believing
in it, doesn't go away -=O=- Philip K. Dick