On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 23:46:01 -0500, Tom McDonald
wrote:
Eric Stevens wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 22:57:04 GMT, (Gary Coffman)
wrote:
snip
Realize that casting is primarily a technique used for cheap mass
produced items.
With respect, that is nonsense. Casting is a technique which is used
to make shapes and structures which cannot be easily made any other
way.
Eric,
In the case of the copper artifacts in the upper Great Lakes
area, all of the shapes and structures have been shown to have
been made via cold and hot-working techniques.
This is not my understanding. Metallurgical examination has shown that
some of the artifacts have been cast.
(Note that I am
not saying that all the copper artifacts were so made; only that
casting was not necessary.)
That seems to be a different topic. Are you saying that even if they
were found to be cast, it wasn't necessary for them to be cast?
As for whether certain types of
tools and ornaments might be more easily made by casting, this
is only true if the technology for casting has been developed.
That is what is at issue.
I think you and I are approaching the question from opposite ends. You
seem to be saying that no artifacts can have been cast, in the absence
of direct evidence for casting techniques. I am saying that cast
artifacts are evidence for the existence of casting techniques, even
if direct evidence for such techniques is not known.
It allows relatively low skilled workers to produce
large numbers of relatively complex identical items.
You do them a disservice to describe them as "low skilled". The work
is difficult and dnagerous, and it took centuries to develop the
techniques.
Yes, especially wrt copper (see Gary's discussion of copper
casting problems below). So far as I can see at this point,
there isn't good evidence for such a period of development in
the archaeological record.
OTOH, at least for the Old Copper and Red Ochre complexes in
the Upper Great Lakes region, there don't seem to be many
well-documented sites from that period (ca. 3000-1000 BC); and
stratified sites are even more rare. Most of the copper
artifacts were surface finds, and many came from collectors
whose documentation of their finds generally ranged from fair to
non-existent.
Cold working is
a much more challenging, and artistically unique, way to produce
intricate copper ceremonial items. The smith has to have a higher
level of skill than the foundryman to produce equally complex work.
Which is why the people who know how to melt and cast copper use that
technique rather than straight smith-work.
Again, I don't know that that is true wrt copper, given the
difficulty the technique appears to have in creating strong,
high-quality results. OTOH, cold and hot working were known by
the Native peoples in the Great Lakes ares to produce that very
strong, high-quality result.
snip
But that said, casting pure copper is a bitch.
This from the guy who has just written that the task can be undertaken
by low-skilled workers?
Eric, I read that to mean that casting, in general (as with
iron, silver, bronze, gold, etc.) can be done by folks with
fewer skills than smiths. However, copper appears to present
particular problems with casting that are not so pronounced with
other metals, and which require higher skill levels than would
be required by those who cast other metals.
I don't read 'low skilled' as meaning 'lower skilled'.
This should be taken into consideration along with the fact
that Great Lakes copper, and drift copper, don't need to be
smelted to use. In other areas, where smelting ore _is_
required, the technology for melting metal is a given; here, it
isn't.
There is a difference between 'smelted' as in refinining and 'melted'
as for casting. I am not aware of evidence for the for the former in
NA but there may be evidence for the latter in the form of cast
artifacts.
Porosity is the enemy,
even for modern copper founders. They charge a hefty premium for
low porosity castings. Alloying the copper to make bronze improves
matters *enormously*, and production of such alloys was a huge
technological leap forward for the casting industry.
*If* the Native Americans of millenia past made the technological
leap of producing bronze alloy, it would be a significant achievement
(as it was when Old World artisans did it). But I've seen no evidence
produced in this thread that the ancient Native Americans made
such a technological leap forward.
The artifacts described appear to all be relatively pure native copper.
As such, the *intelligent* way of working the material would have
been smithing rather than casting. So if the motive were to make
ancient Native Americans appear stupid, then claiming that they
used open casting techniques would be the method of choice to do
so. Now ask yourself which side of the argument is making that
claim.
Neither. The claim merely is that some copper items have been cast.
Eric, Yuri was making the claim that to say Indians of the
Great Lakes area didn't cast copper was to express bigotry
towards the First Nations of the area. Gary's argument flows
from Yuri's standard 'mainstreamers are racists' rap, with its
particular application in the cast vs. worked copper issue.
I'm still agnostic, and am reading up on the archaeological
references I can find. If you, or other folks, have suggestions
for reading, I'm all eyes.
BTW, I've just gotten Mallery's book (the 1979 version, revised
and extended by Mary Roberts Harrison). I've only skimmed a bit
of it, so I don't have an informed opinion on it yet. Will advise.
Very much the curate's egg.
Eric Stevens