Posted on 02/26/2024 12:05:22 PM PST by SunkenCiv
What’s that other tool...for spackling...except it’s copper...so pretty flexible.
This article says they did.
https://www.npca.org/articles/2309-exploring-70-centuries-of-mining-history
Prolly some bricklayer from Lech Walesa’s Solidarity Union lost his trowel tool on the job.
Says "they did" what? Here is what I saw in the article you linked to:
Starting around 7,000 years ago, Native Americans shaped the copper into tools, fishhooks, jewelry and other implements.
I have a friend who may have the largest private collection of old copper culture artifacts.
None of them were cast. They were all cold worked to shape.
Many people have wondered at the lack of smelting and casting technique. Smelting and casting requires the melting of the copper, so it can be cast into desired shapes.
No evidence of smelting has been discovered, or if it has, it has not been understood.
If it were used, you would expect lots of cast copper implements.
Instead, we see lots of cold-worked copper implements, and no evidence of casting.
Ahh I misread it!
Thanks for the correction
I find the old copper culture fascinating.
They were so close to a true metal age, but they never quite got to being able to melt metal and cast it.
The Aztecs and Mayas were right on the edge. They were doing some copper and gold casting. Some of their copper casts seem to have been on the edge of bronze.
The Conquistadors had steel armor, guns, horses, plank built boats, sails, history, and superior religion. They offered the tribes who had been subjugated and terrorized by the Aztecs a better deal. The germs coming from the Old world proved deadlier, faster, than the germs moving from the New World to the Old (syphilis is the most obvious example). Christianity became more popular then human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Lack of ready tin resources would have been a problem.
I think lack of draft animals was a huge detriment to advancement.
The Aztecs had some tin from Zacatecas, and early bronze artifacts have been in the Huastec area of Eastern Mesoamerica.
The American civilizations were just starting to learn to use metallurgy.
In the edit I took out the part where the finder recounted his initial impression that he’d found some debris from WWII.
That was before the advent of Copper-14 dating.
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