Did the ancient Americans know how to smelt and cast copper? Arlington Mallery certainly thought so. He dedicated many years of his life to this research, and excavated many ancient furnaces in the eastern US, but unfortunately the professional archaeologists were not interested.
And yet, some professional metallurgists did agree with his results.
Dr. Earle E. Caley, was a professor of chemistry at The Ohio State University. He reviewed the metallurgical content of "Lost America", by Mallery, and endorsed some of his results. Caley in 1953 was already a published archaeo-metallurgist, and later became noted for his studies of the pre-Inca Moche Indians of Peru, who smelted copper from the ore beginning in 200 AD.
[quote]Copper Casting In Ancient America?
Nothing strange at all, in my view. This is called politics.
According to Mallery, over 100,000 copper objects, such as tools and ornaments, have been found in North America. But I guess this wasn't enough to change the established opinion that the Indians weren't sophisticated enough to do such things.
So today, our archaeology textbooks still read that the North American Indians did not know how to melt and cast copper.
Regards,
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto -=O=-