Archaeologica.org

The Club will insist that wizards caused the carbonate to form before they accept a date for refined metal before 80,000 BC!

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It would be nice to know what level of temperature is needed for that to happen.

Charlie Hatchett wrote:

War Arrow wrote:Those 'mold' pics still intrigue me, though I'm now confused about one thing - there's a mold AND a furnace? Hope I haven't got this tits up but (assuming I'm not misunderstanding you here) I notice both seem to have a lip running along two of the inner surfaces - any ideas on why that might be?

Hey W/A.

Yes, there appears to be a furnace and a mold. Boy, would I love to find a casting produced from the furnace and this particular mold.

The mold does seem to have a lip running along two of the inner surfaces:



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... t%2028.jpg

I've considered the idea that the lip is for 3D effect. Imagine the bottom of the mold being the front of a profile of a man, with the wall carving and lip producing the profile in 3D.

I'll bet you've already been asked this, plus I'm not even sure how practical it is as a suggestion - but have you considered er... filling it up with wax or something just to see what comes out?

Do you notice that we have all these great ideas to put Charlie to work?

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Nearly 1300 deg. Fahrenheit. Seems hot for a campfire. What about a forest fire passing over an area? Then later on some guy notices a rock with some odd properties and puts one and one together?

Of course, one would have to lose the notion of our ancestors being basically grunting idiots for that kind of a leap of logic to make sense.

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Let's take the thought one step further. It's 12,000 years ago. Let's say you are walking through a burned out forest and happen to notice a blob of lead which has melted out of a rock.

It isn't sharp. It isn't hard. You might hit it with another rock and realize you can flatten it but what purpose would it serve in your world? More to the point, what would make you think that other rocks might exude metals which are more useful?

This isn't like a meteor where you can just chip off a piece of iron and use it. What is there about the miraculous find of smelted lead that would lead one to think about other rocks?

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I don't know. Supposedly the earliest iron smelting occured in the Near East about 1,000 BC. Anything older would stand history on its ear.

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Perhaps he couldn't believe the dates that were coming back?