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[Bruce]

Does the culture make the tool or does the tool make the culture. It seems with the clovis point the tool made the people. interresting that it looks like it headed north out of south america. pre clovis iron smelting is'nt looking to promising. googled viking iron smelters and found that these pit smelters are fairly common in north america with most of them located in Ohio. they were used mainly to make bog iron, a low grade. of course this is mainly a european invented process so it's hard to find anybody willing to say these devolped more than a 1000 yrs ago on this continent. I assume your pre clovis is 6-10 thousand. you got a real fight on proving your theory. the idea of indians smelting iron is absurd. have you gotten any dates yet?
btw our casinos are run by the state historical society and not a bunch of injuns.

[Charlie Hatchett]

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[stan]

So, Charlie, you are saying these might be man-made, from ancient glacial gravels?

[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Minimalist]

I can't recall if I asked this here, or an Anarchaeology (getting old, you know) but has anyone ever taken a flint nodule to a decent size cliff and dropped it onto the rocks below? I can't imagine another natural force, aside from gravity, being able to shatter a large piece of flint, and it would be interesting to know, just as a scientific "control" what happens when flint is cracked by falling.

[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Minimalist]

But that's not what I mean, Charlie. I mean conduct an experiment, measured, videotaped, controlled, in which the purely natural force of gravity splits flint and then the resulting pieces can be compared to stones which have been "worked" by humans...or at least hominids. It just seems that if you want to overcome the virtually automatic reflex response of The Club to anything pre-Clovis that it is a natural formation, a small experiment which would be repeatable by anyone with a cliff and a flint nodule would be of assistance. Publish the results on the web yourself if you can't get anyone else to publish it.

I think it is fairly obvious that the first hominid to use a stone as a tool did not park his ass at a campfire and say to himself "I think I'll shape this rock into a tool." No. More likely a naturally occuring stone with a sharp edge was found and over much time the knowledge of which stones gave better edges was gradually learned.

I am not in the least questioning your ability to find a stone that has been 'worked.' I am suggesting that it may be useful to show the difference between those stones and flint which has been cracked by "natural forces."

[Charlie Hatchett]

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[Minimalist]

http://www.earthmeasure.com/bipolar/NF/NATFACT.JPEG

Bingo.




Note the one in the upper left. The piece that has broken off looks to be about 4 inches long (hard to read the ruler in the background) and tapers to a decidedly useful looking edge but even I can see that the edge has not been 'worked.' Still....I wouldn't want someone to hit me in the head with it.