Unexplained Excavation

DATE SUBMITTED: 05/12/13

NAME: J. Marshall

WHAT TOWN IN THE MOHAWK VALLEY ARE YOU FROM:  Richfield Springs

PLEASE TELL YOUR EXTRAORDINARY TALE ABOUT THE MOHAWK VALLEY:

The other day I was reading my online alerts when one came up on Gizmodo. It was this discovery of rocky orbs of pyrite (aka Fool’s Gold). Back in what was the summer of 1986, I worked for a professor at Herkimer County Community college in a summer internship, where I helped him excavate an ancient cave build by some native Americans that pre date the Iroquois, is what they thought.

It was on a dirt road in Mohawk and we pulled out mostly dirt, when we first started the excavation but in July, we discovered these bizarre stone balls that looked very similar to these. I remember seeing one crack open and it looked like gold and quartz crystals inside. It was the damnedest looking thing. I never did find out what they were as I transferred to Buff State after that and lost touch with the Professor.

But these things look very, very similar to these “orbs” found in the city, Teotihuacan.  In this Gizmodo article they say that the yellow color comes from jarosite, which forms as pyrite (fool’s gold)—oxidizes. These that I saw, had a yellow/ green tint to them. The article suggests that a long time ago, they might have seemed like beautiful, glimmering balls of gold, to the native americans.

SAMPLES: http://gizmodo.com/archaeologists-uncover-hundreds-of-mysterious-orbs-in-a-486026749