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Native Americans and Meteorites - Part 2 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. 223-225:

The Hopewell Indian culture flourished from about 500 B.C. to A.D. 500.
The Hopewells settled in villages and did primitive farming, and they
expended substantial labor in constructing large burial mounds and
related earthworks. Within several of these mounds in southern Ohio and
central Illinois, archaeologists have found ornaments either made from
or overlaid with meteoritic iron. A separate fragment weighing 767
grams, which was found in Mound No. 4 of the Turner group in the Little
Miami Valley, Ohio, was a pallasite, and scientists have since
identified it as a transported piece of the Brenham pallasite. The site
of this find is a thousand miles distant in Kiowa County, Kansas, which
adds to the previous evidence that the Hopewell Indians carried on trade
over long distances. In addition, twenty-two beads that were found in
Mound No. 9 of the Havana, Illinois, group were fashioned from a fine
octahedrite, and the location of the main mass from which this material
was obtained is not known. The presence of meteoritic iron objects in
these burial mounds indicates that they were probably treasured
possessions, but evidence that the objects were venerated is lacking.
The occurrence along with them of artifacts made of copper and of
shells, which were much more common material, supports the idea that
they were personal belongings.


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