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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;J Dagger, post: 10468001, member: 10944&quot;]Many of the Native American mounds in the U.S. were destroyed by farmers. Some looted first.</p><p><br /></p><p>I’d think 99% of anything and everything found in Chinese junk shops is a repro or literal junk. I did see someone on antiques roadshow once who did happen to buy some real treasures at Chinese junk shops but most of it I’ve seen is meant to deceive. That guy bought scroll weights if I recall correctly. You can look as close as eBay to see the massive, extraordinary amount of fake antiques and antiquities being sold out of China. The vast majority of Chinese “antiques” on eBay are fake. Chinese export porcelain is relatively safe to buy and relatively abundant. I hear they are even faking that a bit now though. The Chinese domestic market has started to appreciate the high quality of much early export porcelain and has begun buying it. Which leads to fakes. I’ve heard that the artists who decorated porcelain were paid more for working on export wares than they made on domestic and imperial wares. That partially explains the superb quality of the decoration on some 17th and 18th c. export wares.</p><p><br /></p><p>Edit: the North American mound builders built on the most fertile American farmland. In the Midwest river regions. That’s what supported the large cities that formed in their cultures. Relatively large scale agriculture that is. Not needing to spend all your time hunting and gathering led to time that could be dedicated to artistic and more architectural endeavors. They find some pretty spectacular artwork in those mounds. They weren’t savages it turns out, pretty sophisticated cultures those mound builders developed. It’s also what attracted the farmers and caused them to want big flat crop fields. They used the mounds for fill too I think.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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