Was this an Iron Furnace?

 

 

 

 

Yes, it was. Welcome to archaeological mystery! The author is William D. Conner, avocational archaeologist of Columbus, Ohio. My archaeological odyssey begins August, 1963, as I pose (middle) with amateur archaeologist Arlington H. Mallery, and a neighborhood youngster. We sit in the remains of the bowl of the Overly furnace near the village of Austin, Ross County, Ohio. This furnace and others like it in South Central Ohio, excavated 1949-1992 by amateur investigators, represent an Old World technology 2,000 years old. How did it come to exist in Ohio?

 

 

 

Iron Age America before Columbus

 

Preface: The Legendary Azgens

 

1.  Norsemen Among The Indians?

2.  Spruce Hill

3.  Mallery Finds Norse Traces In Newfoundland

4.  Spruce Hill Furnaces Lure Mallery To Ohio

5.  Mallery vs. Solecki

6.  Are Virginia’s Mysterious Furnaces All Gone?

7.  Investigators Keeler and Kelley

8.  Glacial Kame Furnace Uncovered, July 1990

9.  Archaeologist Urges Us To Dig

10.  The Hoover Reservoir Site Furnace

11.  America’s Large Copper Artifacts

12.  Investigator Ellis Neiburger

13. New Light Shed On Furnaces And Maps

14. Used By Columbus?

15. Proof Of Ancient Astronauts?

16. The Newark ‘Holy Stones’ Debate At Roscoe

17. The Bent Artifacts

18. The Farfarers

19. Period Of Unrest’ Caused By Invasion Of Iron Age Celts

20. America and Ohio: Just Before Columbus?

21. Forging Links With Pre-Columbians

 

 

References

 

Appendix A: Arlington Mallery’s Investigation Chronology

Appendix B: Ohio Archaeo-Pyrogenic Sites Database

Appendix C: The Solecki Report

Appendix D: Rebuttal To Solecki’s Report By Mallery

Appendix E: Supplement To Mallery’s Rebuttal

Appendix F: Sterling’s Reply To Mallery’s Rebuttal Of Solecki’s Report

Appendix G: Spruce Hill Investigations, 1992

Appendix H: Report To The Ohio Archaeological Council

Appendix I: Triangulation: Recording Excavation Site Data Points

Appendix J: Arledge TL Test Yields 1740 AD Results

Appendix K: Mallery Not The First

Appendix L: The Georgetown Forum

Appendix M: The Legendary Lost City Of Paint Valley

Appendix N: Carved Stone Buried 15 feet Below Chillicothe?

Appendix O: Found With Metal Detector

Appendix P: Was Ohio Prehistoric Furnace Iron                                                 

Appendix Q: Reported At Symposium In 1973

Appendix R: The Thordsen Map

 

 

 

 

 

Iron Age America before Columbus / William D. Conner

 

Overview

 

‘Crushing’ Evidence of Antiquity

 

Centuries before history began, someone left behind furnaces of ancient Old World Iron Age design buried deep inside “Indian mounds,” hillsides and the banks of creeks in and around the land that would become Ross County, Ohio.  Prehistoric Iron Age people from the Old World built the furnaces to smelt bog iron ore into wrought iron, the metal blacksmiths shaped into tools and weapons.  I will provide conclusive proof that all attempts to fit Ohio’s pit iron furnaces into the 18^th century -- before American settlers claimed the land -- are unworkable.  Instead, evidence indicates that these furnaces were constructed and used about a thousand years ago.

 

I was a teenage boy at Chillicothe High in Ross County when first I met Arlington H. Mallery in 1949.  Scorned by professional archaeologists, Mallery, a bridge-building engineer, knew Iron Age furnaces when he found them, even if they occurred in Ohio, where they were not supposed to exist.  He dug up several furnaces of ancient design along Ross County’s Deer Creek in 1949-50.

 

I have developed compelling evidence these furnaces are in fact prehistoric and this new evidence will be uncovered in my new book, Iron Age America Before Columbus. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text and photos © 1997-2009 by William D. Conner

 

 

“Iron Age America before Columbus”  is now Available!