Copper Culture Finds Thread

[oxbowbarefoot]

Inspired by rac7658's great spear point find, I'm starting this thread for people to post their Copper Culture finds. These artifacts, though strongly concentrated around the Great Lakes region, have been found to have had a very wide distribution away from their source.

Here is my only Copper Culture find to date: It's either an awl or harpoon. I found it detecting my brother's property adjacent to the Salmon River Estuary in Pulaski, NY. That estuary has been a major fishing an trade site for thousands of years on the shore of Lake Ontario. This was one of my first significant finds made a few years back.



I hope one you all post your finds and general locations. It would be cool to see their dispersal patterns.

 

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[The Grim Reaper]

I have only found one Copper Bead here in my area, but I also have some Copper pieces from Wisconsin.

The first picture is the Bead I found. It is right in the center of the Shell pieces toward the top center.

The other pictures are the pieces from Wisconsin.

 

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[oxbowbarefoot]

Very cool finds guys! Thank you for posting!

DALPAL, I found mine in upstate NY too. There aren't too many copper artifacts known from NY that I am aware of, but there is a really great book called "The Metallic Implements of the New York Indians" that's worth a read. The Great Lakes made excellent trade highways to the Michigan/Wisconsin Copper Culture.

 

[oxbowbarefoot]

Here is a link to the digital copy of that book.


https://archive.org/details/metallicimpleme00beaugoog

 

[DALPAL]

Where in Upstate? I found mine near Kinderhook NY. I will look at the book.
Thanks

 

[oxbowbarefoot]

Kinderhook? Wow, that's pretty Far East for that style. That's only about an hour from me. Very cool. I found mine in Pulaski, near the Salmon River estuary.

 

[Toothpick]

Just found this thread. Got most of these late last year.

I found them in central Wisconsin When I was coin shooting/jewelry hunting and just got lucky. These weren't found all at the same time.

 

[Mark Todd]

Nice little spear point you found there!
The pieces on the right look like natural float copper.
Looks like you gave everything a pretty serious cleaning, wire brush maybe?
Again nice find and good luck on your next.

 

[Glenn C]

Nice find. I dont ever clean my archaic stuff. Regarless awesome find. Pound the area.

 

[Toothpick]

Nope, none of it was cleaned. That's the way it comes out of H2o sandy surf areas.

FWIW, I was told by someone who is into copper more then me that the smaller pieces are trade pieces.

thanks

 

[oxbowbarefoot]

Nope, none of it was cleaned. That's the way it comes out of H2o sandy surf areas.

FWIW, I was told by someone who is into copper more then me that the smaller pieces are trade pieces.

thanks

They very well could be trade pieces. It wouldn't be unusual to carry manageable size chucks for trade.

 

[Mark Todd]

Nope, none of it was cleaned. That's the way it comes out of H2o sandy surf areas.

FWIW, I was told by someone who is into copper more then me that the smaller pieces are trade pieces.

thanks

When you said, found metal detecting I figured they came out of the dirt, bad assumption on my part.
I can easily imagine how the surf and sand could clean them up like that.
As far as the little ones being trade copper, I'm sure it's possible but I don't know how you could differentiate it from the mega-more-common natural float that never was traded.

 

[Toothpick]

I have no proof it is trade copper, but that shape and size is commonly found by detectors where worked copper is also found in WI.

I am just going on what I have been told in the past. Hell, years ago, I probily threw out a bunch of awls, conical's etc till someone finally told me what they were.

Duh, to me they looked like rusty nails.

 

[Rocsteddie]

I found this in property line trash pile. Copper Socketed Blade. Northern Minnesota