Customer Reviews

Indians before Columbus: Twenty thousand years of North American history revealed by archeology

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I ran across this book (Indians before Columbus: Twenty thousand years of North American history revealed by archeology by Paul Sidney Martin, George L. Quimby and Donald Collier 1947) by accident in a used book store (sorry!), and was fascinated by the authors' descriptions of pre-Columbian metallurgy...in the "New-World."

Although one notes the use of words no longer applied in scientific circles the details the authors present are fascinating, e.g.:

p. 40 "An aboriginal copper mine was a shallow trench which was dug into the side of a hill with the floor at the entrance or beginning of the cut low enough to provide natural drainage. ...rarely more than twenty four feet deep and two hundred feet long..."

p. 42 and the suggestions what seem to be canoe paddles were used for digging and that the copper could have come from as far away as Cuba, suggests a quite different view of trading and Caribbean contacts in the Americas before Columbus (who noted this in his voyages of discovery).

pp. 42-46 The descriptions of the manufacture of copper objects such as their purity, their hardening, working and other processing are most interesting reading, even almost sixty years after publication.

It seems that in the books description at Amazon.com mention of co-authors George L. Quimby and Donald Collier has been omitted.

Given the date of publication, it was found necessary to do some background searches. Notable finds from this computer search are :

A short vitae of Professor Paul Sidney Martin is found at [http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/anthropology/anthro_sites/paul_martin/martin_web/biostate.html], and [http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/martin_paul.html].

And one notes the authors' work continues to be used in instruction [http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~mmap/summer_2004/mod04pr.htm].