Early Metallurgy in the Americas: A Recommended Download
by Jeff Lindsay
One
of the most popular arguments against the Book of Mormon is that
metallurgy and metal working in general was unknown in Book of Mormon
times.
Previously
some scholars dated the rise of metals in the Americas to around 900
A.D., way too late to account for the scattered references to metals
in the Book of Mormon. That argument, though, has long been dead, as
John Sorenson adequately shows in his recent tome, Mormon’s
Codex, as he and others have long explained years ago.
One
interesting article in that volume is the work of Thilo Rehren and
Mathilde Temme, "Pre-Columbian Gold Processing at Putushio,
South Ecuador: The Archaeometallurgical Evidence." They examine
an area in Ecuador that provides evidence of significant and
sophisticated ancient metal working and metallurgical activity.
Although
no slag or big chunks of metal or “obvious” evidence had
been found, careful scientific analysis of some bowls, soil samples,
etc., proved that metallurgy was going on. One of the problems with
ancient metals in the Americas or anywhere else is that modern
explorers can easily miss or overlook the traces of evidence that
reveal what was going on. We are fortunate that in this case, the
evidence was noticed and explored in detail.
Here
is an excerpt from pages 279-280 that I find especially interesting:
The
metallurgical evidence, given in chronological order, presents itself
as follows:
The
earliest relics of metallurgical significance excavated come from
the Late Formative floor F 1470. They are two mold fragments, their
linings sprinkled with tiny droplets of gold, apparently of natural
composition, demonstrating the casting of molten metal into a
well-prepared form. The related radiocarbon date is 3420 ±255
B.P. Several gold foils from other Late Formative period contexts
are good evidence for the early production of very thin gold metal.
The
Regional Developmental period brought the alloying of substantial
amounts of copper to the gold, exceeding 40% copper by weight, and
the continuous use of more or less unalloyed gold for foil making.
In this period falls the introduction of the bowl-shaped
installations resembling metallurgical furnaces and the preparation
and separate storage of special clays in the activity area. In the
area excavated, the installations were built immediately after the
construction of the terraces.
From
the Early Integration period onward, the use of the installations
and the appearance of soil deposits related to them increased
significantly, at least within the area excavated. The production of
tumbaga went on, as did the foil making. One of the stone
implements, obviously used as a tool for some type of gold
processing (NQ 1 838), belongs to this period.
The
microanalytical investigation of the metallic remains shows that all
fabricated samples are higher in copper than the native flakes and
micronuggets from the excavation and the immediate vicinity. This
increase in copper content is small only for the gold foils and some
of the prills but becomes more explicit for some other prills and is
overwhelming at the tumbaga splash. The addition of minor amounts of
copper to native gold for foil production is not yet possible to
prove as an intentional alloying or just the result of using scrap
metal; but Shimura (1988) claims for Japanese gold foil 1% copper,
an intentionally added amount to enhance color and deformability.
Certainly, the tumbaga production at Putushio was a fully deliberate
alloying operation to produce a material of major importance for
pre-Columbian metalworking.
The
silver distribution becomes more complex with increasing copper
content; the alloys with intermediate copper values are marked by
coring with continuous silver gradients from 9 to 27%, while the
most copper-rich tumbaga sample develops a eutectic structure with a
silver-dominated second metallic phase.
Combining
all the evidence given, one certainly can label Putushio the first
undisturbed Pre-Columbian gold workshop available for archaeological
investigation in all South America. Taking into account the quantity
and quality of material from the small area excavated so far, its
apparently unbroken gold-working tradition over a very long period of
time and its diversity of techniques applied, Putushio may well add
significantly to our knowledge of Pre-Columbian metalworking in terms
of techniques used and alloys chosen at a given time.
From
the footnotes: Period nominations are to be understood as
temporal frames. Corresponding absolute dates for this context are
roughly: Late Formative period 1 500-300 B.C.E.; Regional
Developmental period 300 B.C.E.-800 C.E.; Integration period 800-1500
C.E. (Inca conquest).
This
is clear evidence that metallurgy was underway in the Americas during
Book of Mormon times. Granted, metallurgy in Ecuador does not
necessarily mean that metallurgy was taking place in other locations
of direct relevance to the Book of Mormon, but it certainly dispels
the myth that metals were unknown in Book of Mormon times.
For
today, though, this is a recommended download for your consideration.
If you’re interested in the issue, there is a very large and
growing body of evidence to consider as well.
Speaking
of metals, as I watch our government crank out trillions of dollars
in ways that hint at the madness of the Weimar Republic or, more
recently, Zimbabwe, I cannot help but worry about the future of the
dollar (or any other major currency, for that matter). Maybe it’s
time to put a portion of your earnings into something that can
preserve value like, say, precious metals, not to mention a healthy
food storage. Just a thought.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.