Determining Geologic Sources of Native American Copper

The files have nothing to do with this discussion, which is whether you can name some noted scholars today who accept this. Are you saying that Göran is one of these?

You also don't seem to know where in those files this bowl is mentioned. Or even which file.

Why don't you know?

Doug

Doug, as I told you: You are no scholar of History nor do you know how to read, evaluate validate and analyze Historian works. You are excused. But yes the text you had, didn't you got two from Goran?, does relate to the artifact and discuss it even if you don't have all the details in that. I take it that you haven't had the other files from Scotland? Can't do anything more than remind my scholar friend.

Inger,

Let's say Bardason did collect the bowl from Vinland. What evidence do you have that it would have been _made_ in Vinland? There was trade between Europe and Greenland; and if Vinland were as vigorous a colony as you seem to believe, then there would have been communication between Greenland and Vinland. Why do you insist that the bowl couldn't have come from Europe, where these things were to be found at that time, and wound up in Vinland, to be collected for the tithe and _returned_ to Europe?

Has the silver in the bowl been analyzed to pin-point its origin? Or don't you know about this?

Tom McDonald

Only the word of a medicineman of the tribe that mined the silver that the Norse traded silver over to Greenland and beyond..But as you might understand the essential factor isn't were the coconut origined from, nor who brought the coconut or the coconut shell to Vinland, but we also know that such an item wasn't among the reliks the Vatican sent to the dioceses under Gardar. Do you remember that I sent you the diploma texts for those three years ago? If not we can take that discussion in a later thread-not here.

We also know that one more such bowl was taken via Greenland to Iceland. Does we know who the goldsmith was? NO. While I do know that Iceland between

1050 and 1400 had splendid goldsmiths working in gold and silver I haven't seen that epitet/title given to anyone who lived in Greenland or passed on to NA. Do I believe that the silvered bowl could have been made by Indians. Definitely possible. That we don't know at all. What we do know as a fact is that Ivar Bardson collected the silvered bowl in Vinland as part of the tithes. We know he delievered it and the rest of the Tiundetaka(all tithes collected for the dioceses under Gardar See) to the Papal representant in Stavanger 1364.

I guess you know that almost all scholars believe that the Greenland trade had faded in 1430's? That's not true as I showed in the diploma where King Erik called for the English to pay a large amount for not paying taxes while trading in Icelandic and Greenlandic waters and for the English pirates stealing ships with valuable cargo? I guess you know that the Icelanders had good record for the sailing on Iceland. Had the English only been in Icelandic waters many more English ships would have been noted in the Annals.

On top of it all - the only two such bowls can be linked to be transported via Greenland. No such silvered bowls are noted to have been shipped away from the Old World and what you and others might not be aware of the ship's cargo and the lists from 14th century are much much better than you can imagin.

That's a 'What if' scenario that has no bearing what so ever to actual situation at that time. See above.

While the origin documents still exists I am not sure where the bowl is after WWII. As so many other valuable things it's hard to tell where everything went during the war.

Inger E

Inger,

Will you tell me who this medicine man was, what tribe he belonged to, and when his story was recorded?

But as you might

Well, if you are telling me that the bowl was made in North America, it would be essential to know how the shell got there. Your assertions about Texas, Florida and the Caribbean to the contrary, I still haven't seen valid evidence that coconuts existed in North America or the Caribbean before the Spanish Conquista, much less ~150 years earlier.

Why would it have had to have been a relic sent by the Vatican? Why could it not have been a gift from a wealthy person in Norway, or a personal item brought by a trader or immigrant to Greenland? Surely you don't insist that all high-status items in Greenland and Vinland had to have been sent by the Vatican to church authorities under Gardar?

I don't recall that you did send such, but in any case as I told you, I've lost any copies that I had on my computer, and had to erase my Zip disks to try to save what I could from another computer mishap.

Are there any photos of the bowl that we can look at?

Has the silver used in the bowl been analyzed as to its source?

From some of the English translations of relevant papal records I've read, there was at least some gold and silver in Greenland at the relevant time. I don't know, but I suspect, that some Greenlanders might have had personal items of precious metals.

If the only thing we know to be a fact are that Bardason took a coconut bowl from the Gardar see back to Norway as part of the tithes owed by Gardar, and that the Vatican never sent such an item to Gardar, how can we conclude that no such item was _ever_ brought to Greenland in some other way?

Do the ships' manifests detail every item brought by every ship and every passenger to Greenland? Are there no missing manifests, or manifests that are unreadable in part?

Was there no un-authorized trading? You tell us that English pirates operated in that area. Do you insist that such an item might not have been traded to Greenlanders by such pirates?

Not to mention, of course, the many shipwrecks in Greenland waters, which might have left cargo washed up on shore.

Yes, these are 'what-if's'. But to date, you've given us no evidence that requires the bowl, apparently much like other bowls known from that time in Europe, to have been made in North America. If you can provide such evidence (and I will stipulate that you've heard some story about an unspecified medicine man from an unspecified tribe that reported silver exports; and that Ivar B. did transport a coconut bowl from Greenland to Norway as part of the tithes of the Gardar see), I'll take a look at it.

You've not given us conclusive evidence to say the bowl was made in America. All we know for sure is that Bardason brought such a thing to Europe from Greenland. Its provenance isn't clear; if it is clear to you, either provide the evidence, or stop saying that it the provenance is known.

That's not what I asked. I asked if the silver in the artifact had been analyzed so as to pin-point its source.

BTW, is the sensitivity of some information around this issue something to do with Nazi confiscation of treasure, and questions of repatriation of same? If so, I'm not sure why the secrecy; unless it is to protect the gnomes of Zurich, or current owners of questionable items.

Tom McDonald

On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 16:50:06 -0500, Tom McDonald wrote: [SNIP]

Did I miss something? Where can I read about this?

[SNIP]

Thanks

Doug

It's his story to tell when he and I have gone thru all we know on both sides about contacts in Pre-Columbian days. You see there is an artifact which an other tribe was given in mid 14th century involved in our discussions. But as I said: It's his story for him to tell. Which he will when he feel the time is right.

Why? That doesn't alter the fact that the silvered coconut bowl was collected by Ivar Bardson in Vinland as part of the tithes for Vinland in

1354-1364.

Have you read all Spaniards and others documents?

It isn't. That's the fact.

The valuable items made in Europe that made it's way to Greenland are well documented in ships-papers. The bowl came from Vinland via Greenland. Not from the later. Accept that.

Surely you don't insist that all high-status items

Well the fact is that if anything valuable such as silver and gold, books and wine for that matters was sent from England, France(Flandern mostely) or Norway it's noted. From the two former they needed acceptance to trade with the Greenlanders. But the silvered coconut bowl was brought back from Vinland by Ivar Bardson. You better accept that.

Of this one I don't know. Ask Goran if he knows about the other one.

???? Did you read what I wrote?????

Well they didn't take it with them from Norway. Nor was there any gold and silver mines in Iceland at least not at the time. Only one gold item found in Greenland recorded to have been made by a French(Parisian?) goldsmith and that's a ring from 1500.

The normal People in Northern Scandinavia weren't especially wealthy in those days you know. The Greenlanders seems to have lived a much better life then their alikes in Scandinavia.

agenda - more or less yes.

Now you are on 'what if' scenarios again. Accept that the silvered coconut bowl was collected in Vinland North America. How the coconut that came to be used in production of a bowl was brought there has nothing at all to do with the facts involved.

That un-authorized trading started after 1410. Not before.

Now you are working with 'what if' scenario. That has absolutely nothing what so ever to do with the silvered coconut bowl! Vinland wasn't Greenland only one of the Greenlandic Bishop's dioceses and it also had it's own Bishop in 1100's as well as in late 1400's and up to 1521 AD.

Do you not believe Papal records from the time?

You are in no position to call for that. Take that up with the Vatican Archieves not with me. They have the origin documents. If you are allowed to have access to them, or if you have a friend(which I have had) who are allowed access to them, I can't say. It's not my thing to present anything but the facts involved and show, which I have done, that there are scholars who have written about the documents and noted the coconut bowl.

All speculations is for those who are working with 'what if'. 'What if' is fiction, what was is reality.

Inger E

You must have missed much Doug. You have gotten files sent by Goran where the tithes from Vinland is discussed. You have repeatedly over the last five-six years been given the information that the origin documents still exists in the Vatican Archieves and that several scholars up to WWII saw them and wrote about them. You have seen, I guess, the document where Ivar Bardson's delievery of the tithes he collected for the dioceses under Gardar is confirmed to have been delievered. You have been given information that the detailed list for what and from where is among the documents in the Vatican. Doug take time to analyse instead of jump right on. You are no scholar of History no one expect you to be able to analyse texts and works 10 times quicker than any scholar of History with full Latin knowledge and knowledge of Old-Norse could do.

Inger E

Doug,

No, you didn't miss anything. I got carried away with a devil's advocacy, trying to pare away some of the dross to attempt to get info from Inger. Sorry.

Tom McDonald

I got the files from him. For those who don't know, he's curator of maps at the Royal Museum of Sweden. I haven't had a chance to read them all, but he says that they do not back the claim about the bowl and that what we know about Bardson is his voyage to Greenland in the early 1340s, that he later became a canon in Bergen, and his involvement in witnessing the

*Stavanager* tithes.

I still think your bowl is the 1327 one, which was from the diocese of Skara.

But you aren't claiming that those files back your bowl claim, right?

You have repeatedly over the last

You claimed the bowl was well known by scholars. I assumed, and probably others did also, you meant scholars today. It's no good saying that a few people wrote about them before WWII. Without their names I can't confirm they were scholars, and without specific references I can't find out what they wrote. I don't mean to be rude, really, but why won't you give us this information? Doug

Apparently on date Wed, 09 Jun 2004 22:23:43 GMT, "Inger E Johansson"

Going to be a hell of a story if he is 700 years old.

_Determining Geologic Sources of Artifact Copper: Source Characterization Using Trace Element Patterns._ George (Rip) Rapp, James Allert, Vanda Vitali, Zhichuan Jing, and Eiler Henrickson. University Press of America, Lantham. 2000.

Greetings, all,

I have now examined this book, and found it to be quite disappointing. As it turns out, this is primarily a book about geology, about the laboratory testing methods, and statistical analysis. The actual artifacts are almost non-existent in this study, however odd this may sound...

Yes, to be sure, a couple of pages are devoted to Native copper artifacts, as well (p. 93ff). These are the 21 artifacts from 3 archaeological sites in Minnesota, all from the same neighbourhood, close to the Canadian border.

Sure seems to me like the authors of this study weren't really so sure about their own methodology, because they didn't go any further than these 3 sites -- out of the hundreds if not thousands of such sites.

Let's keep in mind here that there are reputed to be over 100,000 ancient copper objects, such as tools and ornaments, that have been found all around North America. The authors made no attempt to look at them as a whole, or to examine any other artefacts outside of that very small area of northern Michigan.

Were any such artifacts cast?

Are these artifacts always made of pure copper, or perhaps some copper alloy (bronze) artifacts can also be found in North America (north of Mexico)?

Well, since pre-contact bronze artifacts _had_ been found in Mexico, it is almost a certainty that at least a few of them had also been traded to the US territory. But I guess we still don't know about any of this basic and fundamental stuff... The subject seems to be off limits for American archaeologists.

Shouldn't a researcher firsts ask a few natural questions such as the ones above, before delving any deeper into classifying known geological deposits, and into the highly technical questions such as the Neutron Activation Analysis, and the Statistics and Discriminant Analysis? Unfortunately, Rapp et al. only seem to be interested in the rather technical and abstruse questions associated with geological copper, and completely uninterested in the simple and natural questions about the actual Native copper artefacts, that should instantly come to mind.

The assumption among the American archaeological establishment seems to be that the Native Americans are not very creative, and could never figure out how to melt and cast copper.

And since they could never figure out how to melt copper, then obviously they could never smelt it either. And, by the same questionable reasoning, neither could they have ever produced any bronze objects.

Now, obviously, in order to overturn these ridiculous ethno-centric assumptions, all one needs is just one cast copper artefact, and/or one bronze artefact with good archaeological context. Then this whole racist pyramid of doublethink will come crashing down in a pile of dust.

So I would guess that this is the main reason why this whole subject area is so assiduously ignored by the professional archaeologists in the US. Since it would be so easy to overturn these questionable assumptions, therefore all professional archaeologists must look elsewhere when determining the subjects to follow in their research.

Regards,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky -=O=-

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge -- Alfred North Whitehead