**Interesting fact of the day**: While Native Americans never developed the metallurgical knowledge to create steel and iron themselves they did in fact have steel and iron tools long before contact with Europeans.

What happened was drift iron, from asian ship wrecks, due to the current, would often wash ashore along the American north wast. This would take the form of nails or other iron pieces embedded in wood (thus being capable of floating. Native Americans had no idea where this iron was coming from or how it was made, but they did recognize its superior quality as a metal compared to the sorts of metals they typically had access to. As such the Native Americans in the north west would typically harvest this iron and forge it into tools.

To me this is just so extraordinary because they had no contact with outside peoples at this point and had no idea anyone existing out there across the ocean. Yet they kept finding this odd metal they had never seen and must have known it wasnt natural as it was shaped into a nail or a winch or something. So I can only imagine the fantasies they came up with about where it was really coming from, especially considering that it was far stronger and could be made far sharper than any metal they had ever seen. It must have seen magickal to them.

#NativeAmericans #AmericanIndians #Indians #History