Dorchester Pot

The Dorchester Pot was a metal vase that was recovered in two pieces after an explosion used to break up rock at Meeting House Hill, in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1852. According to text reprinted from the Boston Transcript, a local paper, in the June 5, 1852 Scientific American,[1] the two pieces were found, loose among debris thrown out by the explosion. Apparently, it was inferred from the locations of the two pieces of this pot among the explosion debris that this pot had been blasted from solid puddingstone (conglomerate), which is part of the Roxbury Conglomerate, from about 15 feet below the surface of Meeting House Hill.

The Roxbury Conglomerate, from which this pot is alleged to have come, has been dated as having accumulated between 570 and 593 million years ago and during the Ediacaran Period.[2][3] It accumulated at the bottom of a deep rift basin, which was filled with marine water, within either glaciomarine or submarine fan and slope environments.[3][4] Typically, tectonism has flattened, stretched, indented, and fractured the pebbles and associated matrix of the Roxbury Conglomerate to the point that it often has the appearance of flow structure.[5]

The bell-shaped vessel was described as being about 4.5 inches (11.5 cm) high, 6.5 inches (16.5 cm) in diameter as the base and 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) in diameter at the top. The body of this object was said to resemble zinc alloyed with silver in color. It reportedly exhibited floral designs on its side and a wreath or vine design around its lower part, which were both inlaid with silver.[1] The primary source[1] of information about this object, provides neither any picture of nor age estimate for the Dorchester Pot.

The Dorchester Pot is often discussed as an Out-of-place artifact by various popular books and articles about unsolved mysteries, alternative science, and different types of creationism. For example, a chapter[6] on the "PureInsight" web page, provides without any attribution, a picture of an unknown object from an unknown source, showing what they apparently believe the Dorchester Pot looked like. It also provides without any explanation an age of 100,000 years for this artifact. As part of a short description, an identical image of the Dorchester Pot appears on page 46 of a 1985 Reader's Digest Association book.[7] They do not provide any estimate of the age of the Dorchester Pot. The source that they credit for their photograph of the Dorchester Pot is Brad Steiger's "World's Before Our Own."[8] Michael Cremo, a well-known Hindu creationist, claims that the Dorchester Pot is evidence for the "presence of artistic metal workers in North America over 600 million years ago."[9] Some Young Earth creationists regard the Dorchester Pot as having been been manufactured by an ancient civilization that predated the Noachian Flood.

Mainstream archaeologists argue that the Dorchester Pot is neither Ediacaran in age nor even from an ancient, lost civilization. They identify it as being a recognizable historic artifact. For example, Bad Archaeology,[10] a web page created by archaeologists Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews and James Doeser with the stated goal of examining fringe archaeology, states "it is difficult to understand why anyone might take this report seriously" and also identifies the object as "clearly a candlestick of obviously Victorian style...why would anyone in 1852 believe that it was more than a few years old?" Also, as illustrated in figure 81 of a 1964 book,[11] the Italian debunker Biagio Catalano argues that the "vase" is actually almost identical, as in both shape and decorations, to an Indian pipe-holder stored at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (ex Prince of Wales Museum) of Mumbai.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Anonymous, 1852, A Relic of a By-Gone Age. Scientific American. v. 7, no. 38, p. 298 (June 5, 1852)
  2. ^ Thompson, M.D., A.M. Grunow, and J. Ramezum, 2007, Late Neoproterozoic paleogeography of the Southeastern New England Avalon Zone: Insights from U-Pb geochronology and paleomagnetism. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 119(5/6):681-696.
  3. ^ a b Rehmer, J., 1981, Squantum tilloid Member of the Roxbury Conglomerate of Boston, Massachusetts. in M.J. Hambrey and W.B. Harland, eds, pp. 756-759, Earth’s Pre-Pleistocene Glacial Record. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
  4. ^ Socci, A.D., 1990, Stratigraphic implications of facies within the Boston Basin. in A.D. Socci, J.W. Skehan, and G.W. Smith, eds, pp. 55-74, Geology of the Composite Avalon Terrane of Southern New England. Special Paper no. 245. Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado
  5. ^ Mansfield, G. R., 1906, The Origin and Structure of the Roxbury Conglomerate. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. no. XLIX, p. 180
  6. ^ PureInsight, 2006. Zhengjian Book Series: "Removing the Veil from Prehistoric Civilizations" -- Chapter 3: Prehistoric Smelting Technologies and Mining Activities Translated from 《揭开史前文明的面纱》连载(三)：史前人类的金属技术与采矿活动
  7. ^ Marshall, W., M. Dvais, V. Mollman, and G. Zappler (1985) Mysteries of the Unexplained. Pleasantville, New York, Reader's Digest Association, Inc. 320 pp. ISBN 978-0895771469
  8. ^ Steiger, B. (1979) Worlds Before Our Own. New York, New York, Berkley Publishing Group. 236 p. ISBN 978-1933665191
  9. ^ Cremo, M.A., and R.L. Thompson (1998) Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race. Badger, California, Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing. 914 p. ISBN 978-0892132942
  10. ^ Bad Archaeology, 2007. A metallic vase from Dorchester (Massachusetts, USA),
  11. ^ Catalano, B. (1964) Arte Indiana Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, K. Bharatha Iyer, Italy, 142 p.

Other Dorchester Pot References