Copper Casting In Ancient America

Whoops! "You have to have a degree to do research" (Note: not even a "relevent degree", just a "degree")

There goes any semblance of credibility. A degree - particularly a higher degree - demonstrates an individual's ability to produce the verbiage that the university demands - by any means. Any unique or original learning is a bonus, and is certainly not required.

Financial means (on the part of the student) plays a pretty big part too.

So: Rich is smart, and Obsequiously compliant is even smarter.

Add the two characteristics, and... a DEGREE! Whoo-hoo!

Now I can go and do some research.

(Don't get me started on the Piled Higher and Deeper qualification.)

...but he couldn't do research unless he obtained a degree first.

-- Jeff

"A.Gent" skrev i meddelandet news:40b526b9$0$8990$ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au...

Now you are the one with prejudges..... There are some that are natural born researchers. Some ends up as scholars, some as journalists, and some just continue to do it because it's fun. You asked if I had a degree to do it, yes I have but that's not the point. Some who has been able to get themselves major degrees from 5 to 6 fields still don't know how to do the research themselves.

Inger E

Aha! I see where the miscommunication took place.

You thought I asked if *you* (Inger) had a degree. That wasn't my intention.

I was asking generally: "Does an individual (anyone) have to have a degree in order to do research."

It seemed from your reply that you were saying "yes". (Since you said "yes".)

I now realise you were answering a different question.

I assume you don't *really* think that a degree is a pre-requisite for researching, so I should(!) rest my argument there.

That was *exactly* the point of my query.

Thank you. My point exactly.

Ergo, a relevant degree does not guarantee competent research, and the lack of a relevant degree doesn't guarantee incompetent research.

It seems we agree.

I'll be quiet now.

-- Jeff

Inger,

Get this straight. The material was a speech at a conference, not a journal article. Would you judge the scholarly capacity of a person by such an informal speech to the converted?

You are judging Martin very quickly, and on only one speech. You ignore that she is an archaeologist specializing in the copper industry of the area in which she lives. You further ignore that she works in an institution chockablock with professionals whose specialties in, for instance, metallurgy are right there for her to tap. Or do you insist that only you can provide authoritative statements about things outside your personal competence on the basis of people you know and speak to?

What have you got to counter her specific arguments? What scholarly archaeological information do you have for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan wrt copper mining and use? What evidence do you have from metallurgy in Scandinavia that points to mass transportation of identifiable American copper in the very old days?

Come on, Inger; this ad hominum of yours against Dr. Martin is evading the issue. Provide arguments, not aspersions.

Tom McDonald

Eric,

Don't know about you, but I suspect many conferences have at least one speaker who expresses the frustration of the membership about the inanities of those who want to believe. In this case, polemic (with significant evidence interspersed, BTW) is appropriate. It is not sufficient, but the truth in it ought not to be ignored.

Don't you ever get frustrated at the numbskullishness of folks without a clue who pretend to know more than you and your peers?

I see Doug's page as giving a lot of information, of varying academic quality, to address the huge wave of crap archaeology out there. As for debunking, information is part and parcel of that effort.

Do you really not know?

Tom McDonald

Eric,

The history of North American archeology is littered with suggestions of what *advanced* races (i.e.: not Indians) were responsible for the observed sophisticated accomplishedments. Since Indians, of course, both were too unsophisticated to be the authors of the good stuff, and because usually the Indians living on the lands in question usually told the first white folks that they hadn't made them, and either didn't know who did, or ascribed it to gods or other powers.

This left the field open to the vast variety of folks white folk imposed on the great works (e.g.: the Ten Lost Tribes --> Mormonism, or Atlanteans). Martians aren't a leap at all.

Compared to that, the Indians of the Great Lakes area were homogeneous.

You might be interested to know that _Ancient American_, in which Betty Sodder wrote, is a fanatical Morman publication trying to prove that someone else did all the important stuff that the rest of us know Indians did. If you're looking for an axe-grinder, try weighing Sodder in the balance with Martin. It's no contest.

Tom McDonald

Just about anything, I imagine. Not many clays melt at that temperature. A good ball or fire clay will certainly work well.

I've seen a documentary (on an ancient ice mummy, Utzi is the phoenetic spelling) where they filmed some aboriginal (for lack of a better term) people melting copper with about a foot of snow around. (The warmpth of the operation is very welcome. :) They had a nice charcoal fire going with some clay tuyeres leading into it. Some leather bellows fed the air. A hollowed stone or clay crucible held the metal which was then poured in a clay split mold for the axe head they were making.

Preferred for sure, not sure they would've thought of that though.

I actually brought a piece of my own cast bronze to the local college's SEM and had the prof scan it... didn't look too remarkable (crystal structure, etc.) on any surface, at least at the scale he scanned it.

Tim (sitting in a Residence Inn in Fresno, on vacation til friday or so :D )

Although they may not melt, many clays will crack or spall at the temperature required to melt copper. Just learning how to make a crucible which will survive the process would have been a task in itself.

Eric Stevens

Eric Stevens says in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

The word 'race' has become a strawman argument with you. While I use the name group, or grouping I do so only because I reject race. Many people use the word race to describe peoples, peoples being current in real time and race being something that evolves over time. Its an anoying use of the word.

As far as I can tell I agree with that.

There are no 'racial' boundaries in the new world, the amerinds have one of the shallowist genetic gradients per mile relative to the whole world. Native americans exhibits that qualities mostly of a well mixed admixture from diverse areas of the world, namely PNG, middle east and western europe. There is 1 nodal center in south america, there is a very diffuse second nodal center in the highland areas of north and south america. In europe there are several distinct nodal centers in close proximity. In sardinia, in ireland, the basque, . . . . . . There are/were no detectable nodal centers in the great lakes region, as far as I can tell from what I have seen this group was part of an extended gradient of admixture. It you want to see nodal peoples in the new world that were not the result of recent 'post-col' migrations you look to the Yupka.Gauyaki (I estimate settlement 16 to 13 kya) in south american and Seri of mexico (13 to 9 kya).

I'm not arguing against her attack on Sodders or 'Ancient American' which clearly was her prime purpose. I was merely pointing out that in all the verbiage she said relatively little about the 'copper problem' itself. It was not a good citation with which to address Gunner's question.

Eric Stevens

Yes, but you have to remember that my objection was raised in the context of Doug citing her article as the authoritative source on the subject. My point really was that it really was an academic polemical diatribe rather than an academic source of information.

But was it peer reviewed? :-)

I should have said but who in this thread was really arguing that there was significant non-Indian exploitation of the copper?

Eric Stevens

Eric,

Doug was citing Martin as an authority on the subject. He didn't say that the cited material was the last word on it.

This is what Doug said when presenting the url:

---------------------------------------------------- "The article here:

is written by the person who is probably the leading authority on the subject. She looks at the questions you raise."

------------------------------------------------------

She *is* such an authority. She *did* look at the questions raised in the url Doug gave. He did _not_ say that the quoted material was the final word. It was, however, a good, quick statement of her opinion on some of the main issues at play.

By all means, anyone interested in the topic can go to the horse's mouth for more and better information. But the original question was general and vague, and based on the bad scholarship floating around free. Martin's response not a fully scholarly article, but it had more relevant experience to back it up than anyone on the other side has presented recently.

Tom McDonald

It was a good quick opinion on some of the side issues at play. In the end, are Sodder's theories any more relevant than Von Daniken's?

Eric Stevens

Eric Stevens says in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

My aren't we gripping at straws. Eric you need to get some new ploys, people catch on too fast now-a-days.

Eric,

I haven't plumbed the depths of Sodder's theories as much as I have Von Daniken's. Probably because VD is so catholic in his fantasies that I'm at enough distance to be amused rather than irritated at them.

What I've read of Sodder's work strikes closer to home for me, to the extent that it discusses things I know about and people I feel have been treated dismissively by a certain type of misguided 'investigators'. I've known a number of Anishnabe, Menomonee, Ho Chunk, Sioux and other folks who were around here aboriginally. Even though they were probably not, or not closely, related to those who mined and used the copper in past millenia, they are tarred by the same brush by those who support the necessity of Old World in-comers to provide sophisticated behavior such as copper mining and tool and ornament making.

Personally, I think anyone who studies the archaeology of the upper midwest and Great Lakes area should be honor bound to demand extraordinarily competent scholarship from anyone who would suggest non-Native sources for cultural advances. This isn't PC; this is based on a clear reading of how Native Americans have been marginalized by those with agendas to promote Old World causes for New World sophistication.

Tom McDonald

So why are you searching the literature for the evidence of genetic differences?

Did I take exception to that statement? There is no need to defend it agaainst an imaginary attack by me.

Is this not something which biologically separates the population?

Which supports my point that there are biological differences which can be readily detected by a geneticist.

Eric Stevens

Try answering the question.

The answer should be easy.

Eric Stevens

On Wed, 26 May 2004 17:36:42 -0500, Tom McDonald wrote: [SNIP]

Good idea. She seemed very friendly.

Doug

On Wed, 26 May 2004 19:19:24 -0500, Tom McDonald wrote: [SNIP]

That is exactly what she's done. Without looking at even probably 1% of the evidence for Susan Martin's scholarly ability, she thinks she can judge it by an informal speech reprinted in a non-academic publication. Inger doesn't have any practical grasp of the importance of context and is quick to make judgements with inadequate evidence. Perhaps that should be taken as a pointer towards her own scholarly capacity.

[SNIP]

Doug