On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:53:00 -0400, Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
Gary Coffman wrote:

[snip]

The apparent fact that the Native Americans *didn't* cast native
copper

This is a "fact" only if you disregard all evidence to the
contrary, as you appear to be doing.

Virtually all of the evidence presented to date in this thread is
against casting of ancient Michigan native copper artifacts. If
you have conclusive evidence showing characteristic porosity
in all the items claimed to be cast, if you have evidence showing
a chemical analysis of true alloying between the native copper
and other metals (mainly silver) found with it in the halfbreed
ore matrix, if you have evidence of large numbers of identically
dimensioned artifacts representative of a casting provenance,
etc, then present it. Otherwise you have no case.

What we do know is that ancient Michigan artifacts have been
found with silver inclusions. That precludes the possibility that
they were ever melted. We do know that of the artifacts which
have been put forward as evidence of copper casting, all but
one do *not* show the characteristic porosity of atmospheric
melting of copper, and that one does not appear to be a deliberate
casting.

We do know that there is no need to invoke casting as the
manufacturing method of any of the artifacts, ie it has been
demonstrated that any of them could have been smithed
from native copper without casting using tools and techniques
known to have been available to the Native Americans of
Northern Michigan. And we have the testimony of an experienced
coppersmith that casting would have been a greatly inferior
method of producing them.

The burden of proof is on you to present incontrovertible
evidence that any of the Michigan artifacts were in fact cast.
So far, you have not done so.

Gary