Posted by:
mikemitchell
(
)
Date: February 10, 2018 10:39PM
Didn't want to resurrect an old post but this is in reference to it.
https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,71942,72222#msg-72222The claim of lead smelting came from an NPR article several years ago. Here is a link to it.
https://www.npr.org/2011/01/03/132412112/the-prehistoric-treasure-in-the-fields-of-indianaHere are quotes from that article:
"But there may be an even more remarkable discovery — one that could rewrite history books. Linderman says scientists are starting tests on what looks like evidence of lead smelting, a practice that, until now, was only seen in North America after the arrival of the French, 1,000 years after the Hopewell Tradition."
"Lead smelting is just one of the many questions archaeologists will be targeting in upcoming digs that they hope will clear up at least a few of the Mann Hopewell Site's — and American prehistory's — mysteries."
Some Mormons grabbed onto that NPR article and have claimed it is evidence for the Book of Mormon. But it is coming up on a decade now since that was written, what has come of the research?
I have spent a few hours digging around on the internet to see if there are any published articles or comments on Mormon blogs. Didn't have much luck but I did find something interesting in a recent Master's degree thesis. Here is the link.
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=kent1501510280333251&disposition=inlineIn a nutshell, Sara researched burial objects from the Mann site and their intentional destruction before burial. The archaeologist term is "ceremonial killing". From what I read in her work, it is much more plausible that the lead pellets resulted from ceremonial burning of galena and really had nothing to do with smelting. This makes far more sense to me than ancient smelting, considering that the Hopewell did not use lead for artifacts. Copper was the metal of choice.
Richard the Bad, what are your thoughts? Have you got anything else on this subject of hints of Hopewell lead smelting?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2018 10:45PM by mikemitchell.