Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T09:41:03.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beads of Meteoric Iron from an Indian Mound Near Havana, Illinois*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Robert M. Grogan
Robert M. Grogan*
Affiliation:
State Geological Survey, Urbana, Illinois
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the summer of 1945, members of the Illinois State Museum under the direction of Thorne Deuel, Director of the Museum, excavated a group of Indian burial mounds in the Havana, Mason County area. Burial No. 10 in Mound No. 9 of this group yielded 22 rounded bead-like objects, composed of strongly oxidized iron, together with slightly more than 1000 ground shell and pearl or pearl slug beads. As the burial was evidently prehistoric and of Hopewellian age, it was at once conjectured that the iron might be of meteoric origin. In January, 1946, several of these supposed iron beads were sent to the State Geological Survey, with the request that the nature and source of the iron be determined if possible. In addition, Dr. Deuel kindly made available the data presented herein on the nature of the discovery and on the size, shape, and arrangement of the supposed beads.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 13 , Issue 4Part1 , April 1948 , pp. 302 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1948

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Published with the permission of the Chief, State Geological Survey Urbana, 111.

References

1 H. L. Walker, Professor and Head, Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, University of Illinois, personal communication.

2 Rickard, T. A., Man and Metals, Vol. 2, p. 845, New York: The Whittlesey House, 1932 Google Scholar.

3 S. H. Perry, “The Metallography of Meteoric Iron,” Bulletin, U. S. National Museum, No. 184, p. 46, Washington, 1944.

4 Allen, E.T., “Native Iron in Coal Measures in Missouri,” American Journal of Science, 4th Series, Vol. 4, pp. 99–104, New Haven, 1897 Google Scholar.

5 Buddhue, J. D., “Native Iron and its Alloys,” The Mineralogist, Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 3–1, 29–35, 1936 Google Scholar.

6 J. D. Buddhue, idem.

7 Steenstrup, K. J. V., “On the Occurrence of Nickeliron with Widmanstätten's Figures in the Basalt of North Greenland,” Mineralogical Magazine, Vol. 6, pp. 1–13, 1884 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See SirCarpenter, H., “Native Iron from West Greenland,” Nature, Vol. 136, No. 3430, pp. 152-3, 1935 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Lorenzen, J., “A Chemical Examination of Greenland Telluric Iron,” Mineralogical Magazine, Vol. 6, pp. 14–38, 1884 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Rickard, T. A., Man and Metals, Vol. 1, p. 170, New York: The Whittlesey House, 1932 Google Scholar.

11 T. A. Rickard, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 846.

12 Personal communication.

13 Zimmer, G. F., “The Use of Meteoric Iron by Primitive Man,” Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, Vol. 94, pp. 306-49, 1916 Google Scholar.

14 Rickard, op. tit., Vol. 2, p. 864.

15 Rickard (op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 146) makes reference to G. A. Wainwright, “Iron in Ancient Egypt,” Cairo Scientific Journal, August, 1914.

16 Rickard, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 140–1.

17 Putnam, F. W., Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology Reports, Vol. 3 (16th and 17th Annual Reports), pp. 171-3, Cambridge, 1880–86 Google Scholar.

Putnam, F. W., American Anthropologist, O.S., Vol. 5, p. 49, Washington. 1903 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Willoughby, C. C., “Primitive Metal Working,” American Anthropologist, O.S., Vol. 5, p. 55, Washington, 1903 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

C. C. Willoughby, “The Art of the Great Earthwork Builders of Ohio,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1916, pp. 492–5, Washington, 1917.

18 L. P. Kinnicut, “Report on the Meteoric Iron from the Altar Mounds in the Little Miami Valley, Ohio,” Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology Reports, Vol. 3 (16th and 17th Annual Reports), pp. 381- 4, Cambridge, 1880–86.