To all,
I had sent this off-line to Adi, but following up on Bart's response about
North American sources, I thought the message might be useful to others:
Adi,
Check out Spence, Michael W. and Brian J. Fryer, "Hopewellian Silver and
Silver Artifacts from Eastern North America," in Gathering Hopewell,
Society, Ritual, and Ritual Interaction, edited by Christopher Carr and D.
Troy Case, 2004 Kluwer Academic/Plenum, pp. 714-733. This article deals
with New World (W Great Lakes and Ontario) sources and compositions of
Middle Woodland Period silver artifacts, providing trace element analyses of
pieces and artifacts using a number of analytical techniques. The
discussion is interesting. Appendix 20.2 on a CD provided with the book
claims to contain the analytical data for silver samples. I have not
personally looked at the appendix.
You may also want to contact Mike Wayman from U of Edmonton, Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada. He did some metallography on Middle Woodland earspools
collected by Squier and Davis in the Ohio Valley and now housed at the
British Museum. He found silver sheathing on a number of the earspools he
examined. He did do metallography on several specimens, but the emphasis of
the work is on native copper. The published work is Wayman, M.L., J.C.H.
King, and P.T. Craddock, "Analysis of the Copper Artifacts in the 'Squier
and Davis' Collection, Museum of Mankind," in Aspects of Early North
American Metallurgy, British Museum Occasional Paper 79, Departments of
Scientific Research and Ethnography 1992, pp. 95-134.
Best on your work,
Kathy Ehrhardt
Kathleen L. Ehrhardt, Ph.D.
930 S. Rangeline Road
Columbia, Missouri 65201
573-447-4108
[log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Arch-Metals Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Bart Torbert
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 6:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Native silver
One of the greatest occurrences of native silver are the native copper
deposits of the American/Canadian Great Lakes Region. I don't have a
particular reference to point you to relative to your interest, but there is
much written on these deposits. Start looking into them and hopefully you
will find what you need.
Bart Torbert
-----Original Message-----
From: Arch-Metals Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adi
Eliyahu Behar
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 1:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Native silver
Dear Group,
Has anyone have an idea about published work on micro-structure, and
chemical analysis of Native silver?
Any information regarding sources and processes in which native
silver/silver-copper is formed would also be highly appreciated!
Best wishes,
Adi
Adi Eliyahu - Behar, Ph.D
Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science,
Weizmann Institute of Science
and Tel Aviv University
Israel
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