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Native Americans and Meteorites - Part 6 of 6

Jeanne wrote:

> I was also wondering if your book mentions anything about Native
> American usage of Canyon Diablo irons for tools, amulets or other
> spiritual items.

BURKE J.G. (1986) Cosmic Debris - Meteorites in History, pp. 231-232:

The Hopewell Indians of the Ohio Valley fabricated knives, chisels, ear
ornaments, and buttons by hammering or cold-working meteoritic material.
Crushed fragments of olivine or interstices in the metal from which the
olivine had been lost revealed that at least some of the artifacts had
been fashioned from a pallasite. George Kunz in 1890 remarked that the
meteoritic nuggets found there greatly resembled the Brenham pallasite,
and although Brezina agreed with this opinion, other scientists did not.
Recently, Wasson and Sedwick concluded from their analysis of the nickel
and trace element composition that the Ohio material was virtually
identical to the Brenham pallasite. The Indians at Havana, Illinois,
fabricated the beads found there, which varied in diameter from
three-sixteenths to five-eighths of an inch, from sheets or strips of
meteoritic material that were fashioned into cylinders with a lapped
seam on one side. However, Buchwald determined that the Indians must
have intermittently annealed the strips during the cold-working process.
The microstructure he observed indicated that the annealing temperature
was about 650° C, and the slightly distorted appearance of the kamacite
grains showed that cold-working followed the last annealing process.


Best regards,

Bernd


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