Sold for $482,000 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

[archer]

Well as quickly as I thought I might have found some good incite on these daggers. I find the authors discredited. link http://www.fenimoreartmuseum.org/fil...haw/search.htm This link shows other daggers and clicking the last one will bring up http://www.fenimoreartmuseum.org/fil...t1/e10554a.htm Note it discredits John Witthofts claims. Sorry, Tim, I removed most of the starchy substance with a toothpick awhile back. Here are some closeups. Sorry about bringing an oxcart into a discussion on Mercedes.

[David]

I don't think Archer's example is at all the same category of dagger that we are discussing here though it is interesting to see.
Your link to the discrediting of the author you cite doesn't lead to an article. Do you have another link? I am not sure what claims are discredited, but this is not the first time i have heard of meteorite as a source of iron for some of these daggers, the "Killer Whale" dagger in particular.

[archer]

Sorry in 1st link type in "dagger" click search. to see other daggers.
2nd link is the one (in history) that discusses stone working copper, etc.

Steve

[Tim Simmons]

Just to prick this topic a little- here is an extract from "Miskwabik- Metal of Ritual, Amelia M. Trevelyan, The University Press Of Kentucky" Which mentions the history of denial about Native American metalwork from the North East, all be it that the book is about copper. The general idea is that work was fashioned from "float copper" the copper was not just picked up in the top layer of soil but obtained from extensive mining. Much of the copper had to be extracted from a surounding matrix of stone and spoil by fire. Okay this is not stricktly smelting ore but shows an understanding of the concept. One has to assume that indeed a degree of smelting may have occured in this process. I see a similarity to Brass in sub-saharan Africa inspite of a great deal of evidence in both cases.

As to iron in the Pacific North West could it be a similar situation? very small scale ritual production? again as in the case for Brass in sub-saharan Africa, native production being replaced by more easy to come by trade iron. The maturity of artistic expression and forge work seen in PNW iron work makes me think of a strong tradition only to decline with contact and trade.

Just food for thought I am not a qualifide acedemic.

[lemmythesmith]

Hi all, there's some interesting info and pics here....

http://www.livinglandscapes.bc.ca/up...gger/app2.html

[fearn]

Hi All,

Couple of historical notes, somewhat off topic:

There was indigenous ironworking going on in the Arctic--the Greenland Arctic. Bits of the Cape York Meteorite (which landed on the Cape York Peninsula, NW Greenland roughly 10,000 years ago) were being cut off and cold forged into blades at least 1000 years ago (ref: McGhee, Ancient People of the Arctic, 2001). The meteorite is currently at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH link)

I'm still looking for images of these blades, but I suspect that they would have been small tools, rather than big daggers. Cold forging means pounding a flake into shape and scraping it sharp, and that would take a lot of effort to make any sort of useful blade.

I'd also point out that the "Old Copper Complex" in the western Great Lakes area dates back to 6,000 years ago, although copper working was confined to jewelry by 3,000 years ago. Apparently, when the copper mines in Michigan were found by Europeans, they were human-worked pits with the tools still in them.

Basically, copper working isn't new to North America. The big issue to make it work is heat and technology. Copper melts at 1085 deg. C, about 200 deg C hotter than a campfire. Because of this, you need some precursor technology, such as a pottery kiln, to provide expertise and technology in getting the proper temperatures. Iron can be similarly worked in a bloomery at 950 deg C up (1070 deg. C is apparently optimal). This is lower than the temperature required to melt iron (1538 deg C), but importantly, it requires bellows and charcoal to work.

So if we're looking for a culture that has independently developed iron or copper smelting, I think it's a safe guess that they'd also have things like ceramic pots, probably bellows (or at least blow tubes), and some other technological infrastructure lying around. While I have great admiration for the skills of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Arctic, they weren't potters. Rather, they were carvers and weavers. Prior to Contact, I think they worked native copper lumps whenever they could find them, but they didn't start working big sheets of copper until those were available through trade with the Europeans (the copper was used to coat the hull to make it worm-proof, and ships carried extra for repairs).

So far as figuring out how old the daggers are, I think this sets an upper limit. They probably could not have been produced prior to European contact. The tribes didn't have the precursor technology necessary to get enough copper (let alone iron) to make them. However, other groups (notably the Hawaiians) learned how to work with iron quite quickly after they met their first blacksmiths, and I'd bet that's the case for the PNW as well. They weren't stupid people, after all, just limited to the technology that their local environment could sustain.

My 0.00002 cents,

F

[Tim Simmons]

Good points Fearn. I think the idea of oxygenating a fire is not hard to grasp even if an area is not known for ceramic production. One just has to think of the low fired ceramic wares from Africa, often fired on an open fire or smouldering dung fire. Yet we see African smelting of iron from a hole in the ground, the fire oxygenated from simple bag bellows. I would imagine simple smelting sites like these would present problems for archaeologists to differentiate from domestic hreaths? The picture is from "Kwakiul Art, Audrey Hawthorn, University of Washington Press. Perhaps inspired by European design or not? but I cannot believe that people who make such splendid articulated masks would have problems arriving at a form of bellows.

[David]

Originally Posted by fearn

So if we're looking for a culture that has independently developed iron or copper smelting, I think it's a safe guess that they'd also have things like ceramic pots, probably bellows (or at least blow tubes), and some other technological infrastructure lying around. While I have great admiration for the skills of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Arctic, they weren't potters. Rather, they were carvers and weavers.

I would think that this would have less to do with available technology and more that it might be a real bitch to dig clay out of the perma-frost. They were carvers and weavers based on available resources.