| AUTHENTICATION OF STONE ARTIFACTS |
Ted Koelikamp |
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Crown Point, Indiana |
There are many enjoyable things about the hobby of collecting Indian artifacts. There is, however, one unpleasant area that still continues to plague our hobby and that is the subject of fakery. This problem has gotten steadily worse through the years that I've been a collector. Fakery has been around for over a hundred years, but its degree of sophistication has become alarming to the point that it has become almost impossible to tell good and bad artifacts in some cases without the aid of methods not generally known to most of us. The January, 1965, issue of the CSAJ was dedicated to this problem, and some helpful information can be found there.
I have in my collection of Indian-related books an 1886 publication entitled Elephant Pipes and Inscribed Tablets, from the Museum Academy of Natural Sciences, Davenport, Iowa, by Charles Putnam. In it is a lengthy dissertation attempting to proclaim authenticity of two platform pipes with elephant (mastodon) effigies on them. It is interesting reading, with lofty opinions from experts back then who concluded that the pipes were genuine. These pipes were, of course, determined to be fakes years later. How many items have you seen in various museums and publications that appear to be suspect? I believe the key to overcoming this problem is in the accumulated knowledge of experienced collectors, no one of which can be an ultimate expert.
Most knowledgeable collectors know there are artifacts from different periods and areas made from materials that do not always show obvious patination, at least not to the naked eye. Even a good magnification lens may not be enough to adequately determine the authenticity of some chipped and ground stone pieces.
Some collectors avoid this problem by simply not buying anything that does not have obvious patination. Other collectors look at other determiners such as flaking, material, weathering, form and more to help make their judgments. I've seen collectors close their eyes and handle a piece to feel the surface for irregularities which supposedly helps them divine if the piece was made by hand or by modern tools. I've seen people lick the stone to find out if the piece was aged with acid or chemicals. I hope those pieces weren't aged in a manure pile for a year or so before they became 'credible.' None of these methods are totally reliable in determining age or authenticity.
A method that has become more polished in recent years is the addition of artificially applied patinas to newly made pieces. Deposits of iron oxide, one of the common forms of soil patinations found on stone artifacts, can be applied to stone. I've been told that heating and burning sugar granules on a stone's surface gives the appearance of iron oxide. Allowing iron shavings to rust the surface can create an effect similar to oxidation deposition of the soil. Burying in manure (previously mentioned) gives an overall thin brown staining which suggests oxide sediment. The bottom line is that this form of patina should not be the only determiner for authenticity.
For years many collectors avidly looked for what has been called dry rot deposits which are evident on pieces found in most areas of the Midwest. See the CSAJ articles by Kyle L. Sly entitled 'Chert Effigies,' October, 1955, and 'Opinions, Fact and Artifacts,' July, 1957, for descriptions of artifacts with dry-rot deposits.
Field hunters will tell you that many broken pieces picked up in farm fields lack these deposits on one side but not the other. I have also been told by a collector that he'd seen these deposits literally glued to the surfaces of dubious pieces. Dry rot, along with other creditable determiners, however, may still be helpful in assessing the genuineness of a piece.
Points from different areas exhibit different types of patina. For example, artifacts from Mexico may have lime or manganese oxide deposits. Both of these patinas, however, are easy to duplicate. Some points from the Western U.S. can exhibit a milky, whitish haze on their surfaces. A good number of Knife River flint pieces have this patination. I've was told recently that even this type of patina has been successfully duplicated to some degree. This bleaching type of surface patina is also found in the Midwest and is commonly called creek stain. This type of patina generally is found on pieces from sandy areas bordering creeks and rivers.
Where there is money, there will be dishonesty. All collecting fields suffer from this to some degree. Some collectors believe that dealing with old-time collections is best. Others feel that dealing with only people of good reputation is the best policy. However, nothing is a sure thing. Some fakes have been around for a hundred years. And some fakes are even collectibles themselves, though not as genuine artifacts.
Gregory Perino, a professional archaeologist, is well-known for his authentication papers and has done creditable service for the collector in bringing his considerable knowledge and experience to determining the authenticity of stone artifacts. Still, even his authentication papers have been faked and duplicated in recent years. Dishonesty and greed always seem to find a way.
My advice to inexperienced and experienced collectors alike is to seek out the advice of two or three other experienced collectors before buying a piece. Seeking these opinions is less embarrassing than finding out later that you made a big mistake. Sometimes a piece may be authentic but for a small reworked or restored portion. The obviously good surface may overwhelm and divert the collector from the smaller area that has been tampered with. Someone else may catch it and save you from later disappointment.
The key, then, is being knowledgeable about a wide range of factors that give evidence to a piece's being genuine, fake or tampered with. This knowledge comes through personal experience and the combined expertise of other collectors as well. Field walkers have the added advantage of knowing what good pieces should look like in terms of material, workmanship, form and patina. Damaged specimens can be useful study pieces for this purpose. Study and learn from them.
I was impressed with an article from the October,1988, National Geographic in which a piece of carved mammoth ivory was subjected to microscopic laboratory analysis to determine if it was really an Ice Age piece of art. Deposits of various minerals in fissures and depressions determined that the mineralization encrustation would have taken place over thousands of years and was impossible to fake. They found that X-ray diffraction revealed the presence of iron oxides from sediment it was found in and floride deposits from the effects of ground water. Alpha particle spectral analysis located radioactive elements and found uranium, the uranium having entered the piece after its burial. Radioactive decay was useful in estimating the artifact's age. Also, this report stated that knowledge of the soils in a purported area could further validate a find based on the depositing effects of minerals in the soil.
Although this artifact was made of ivory, could not the same process be utilized on stone artifacts with similar results? Indeed, there is evidence this is being done. In the same issue of National Geographic was an article on the Clovis cache found in the state of Washington. Laboratory analysis of these large Clovis points found stains on one point that had been hafted and found bovine blood residue deposits on three more of the artifacts. Only microscopic analysis could have revealed this.
The January, 1965, CSAJ, as stated, was dedicated to the problem of fakes. Included in this issue was a copy of a letter from the Chicago Spectro Service Laboratory, Inc. Spectrographic and chemical analysis was done on a submitted drilled bannerstone. The letter indicated that the results of their work determined that the piece was not genuine. They concluded this based on a high concentration of nickel, chromium and manganese found in the drill hole, indicating the use of a modern drill.
Could it be that at some point laboratory and microscopic analysis of stone artifacts will become a more common practice in order to determine authenticity? Only artifacts of particular significance and value would be submitted for this type of scrutiny, as it is undoubtedly expensive. Perhaps this will be the only way to overcome the greed of the unscrupulous among us who feed upon the collector's individual inability to determine beyond a doubt the authenticity of certain artifacts. In the meantime, sharing the combined acquired knowledge of experienced collectors is the best alternative at present.
Some collectors have dropped out of this hobby over the discouragement created by fakes. I prefer to view this problem as a cautious challenge to separate fact from fiction, good from bad, with the help of other collectors around me. No one knows everything, but together our knowledge can be quite impressive.
© 1990 C.S.A.S.I. Last modified:
December 8 2004