Who Where The "Copper Culture" People?

Re: Who Where The "Copper Culture" People?

Found a nugget while dredging in Indiana
 

Attachments

  • ca36.jpg
    ca36.jpg
    1.3 KB · Views: 1,362
  • ca36.jpg
    ca36.jpg
    1.3 KB · Views: 1,337
Re: Who Where The "Copper Culture" People?

SamsSon said:
I know that the people today known as "Native American" (which really all of us born here are) generally claim these people as their direct ancestors.

But the really off thing is their artifacts date back so far and how they are found today is also a great mystery. I read somewhere that when these people stopped mining the float copper they just suddenly disappeared. They left their tools laying right where they were working. It's almost like they were suddenly carried away by something and never able to return.

All mining of float copper ceased with their sudden disappearance until the European settlers started working their old mines.

The peoples we call "Native American" today have no continuing record of mining copper that dates back to these mysterious "Copper Culture" people.
***********************
With so little to go on historically and archaeologically, it is probably easier to state who the Old Copper Culture people weren't , than who they were.

While the current tribes may claim direct ancestry to the Old Copper Culture people, their own oral and other later historical accounts say otherwise. Most tribes of the area are Algonquian based linguistically, and were pushed west over the centuries. It is also telling that when Europeans found and began re-working the old mines, it was apparent that the tools laying about hadn't been used in centuries. Copper was very common to the OCC, yet non-existent to the historically known people of the post-Columbian era. A lost part of their heritage? Reasonably unlikely due to it's commonality, importance, and lack of reference to it in their own oral tradition.

Here is a quote from an Ojibwa site of their own history.

"Like other Indian tribes, the Ojibwe allied themselves to the French militarily and economically. They traded with the French who entered the Great Lakes in the 1660s, and their desire to obtain European trade goods drove the Ojibwe to expand westward into Lake Superior to find richer fur-bearing lands. Soon, they came into contact with the Eastern, or Santee Dakota (commonly known as the Sioux). During the 1730s, the Ojibwe and Dakota began to fight over the region around the western point of Lake Superior and the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and this war lasted until the 1850's. The Ojibwe were generally successful, and they managed to push the Dakota farther west into Minnesota and North and South Dakota. The main Ojibwe settlement in Wisconsin at this time was on Madeline Island in Chequamegon Bay, Lake Superior. In 1745, the Ojibwe of Lake Superior began to move inland into Wisconsin, with their first permanent village at Lac Courte Oreilles at the headwaters of the Chippewa River. Later, the Ojibwe expanded into other parts of northern Wisconsin, particularly Lac du Flambeau. The name of this village in French means "Lake of the Flames" because the Ojibwe speared fish at night using torches attached to the end of their birchbark canoes."

"The fur trade prospered in the Lake Superior region during Britain's tenure of control. The United States gained all lands south of the Great Lakes after the American Revolution ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. However, British fur trading companies in Canada, particularly the mighty North West Company, continued to operated trading posts in the Ojibwe lands of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota until 1815. The United States became concerned with the growing British influence in the region. An 1805-1806 expedition led by American army officer Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike attempted to undermine British influence and end the Ojibwe-Dakota wars, but it had little effect. British and French-Canadian traders continued to operate in the Lake Superior country, and the Ojibwe-Dakota war continued.

Like other Indians in the Midwest, the Ojibwe sided with the British because they believed that the United States would take their lands. Many Ojibwe became adherents of Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet (or Tenskwatawa), Shawnee brothers in Ohio who preached a doctrine of resisting American expansion. Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet formed a pan-Indian confederacy that fought alongside the British during the War of 1812. Many Ojibwe from the region around Detroit (Homeland Security) fought against the U.S., but Ojibwe bands in northern Wisconsin generally stayed out of the fighting despite being pro-British." http://www.mpm.edu/wirp/ICW-151.html
Click to expand...
 

Re: Who Where The "Copper Culture" People?

I am from the U.P. Gladstone/Escanaba area. Found this piece in Escanaba, Copper Culture Celt, 3000-5000 years old, sold to a museum.

I have heard that the copper from the copper country up north is the purest in the world. I have also heard that some copper items were found in Egypt and could have only come from the U.P. Not saying that is fact, but ya never know.
 

Attachments

  • g000258000000000000bf5b1a80216d13f6fa115779182d19cb1668a1a3.jpg
    g000258000000000000bf5b1a80216d13f6fa115779182d19cb1668a1a3.jpg
    14.9 KB · Views: 282
Re: Who Where The "Copper Culture" People?

Michigan Copper in the Mediterranean - (Isle Royale and Keweenaw Peninsula, c. 2400BC-1200 BC)

Summary

Recent scientific literature has come to the conclusion that the major source of the copper that swept through the European Bronze Age after 2500 BC is unknown. However, these studies claim that the 10 tons of copper oxhide ingots recovered from the late Bronze Age (1300 BC) Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of Turkey was "extraordinarily pure" (more than 99.5% pure), and that it was not the product of smelting from ore. The oxhides are all brittle "blister copper", with voids, slag bits, and oxides, created when the oxhides were made in multiple pourings outdoors over wood fires. Only Michigan Copper is of this purity, and it is known to have been mined in enormous quantities during the Bronze Age.

The Geology of Copper

Copper is said to be the most common metal on the face of the Earth with the exception of iron. However, most of it is in the form of low-grade ores that require a sequence of concentration mechanisms to upgrade it to exploitable ore through a series of proto-ores. Copper ores of the "oxidized type", including the oxide cuprite, and carbonates (malachite) are generally green or blue, and reducible to copper metal by simple heating with charcoal. Ores of the "reduced type" are sulfides or sulfosalts (chalcocite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite), and are not readily identified in outcrops as ores; they require roasting to convert them to oxides, then reduction of the oxides to produce metal. There are a number of places in the world where copper can be found in small deposits in the pure state, but it is usually embedded in a rock matrix, from which it must be freed by intensive labor, or, today, crushed in huge volumes, and treated to obtain the metal.

The Unique Geology of Michigan Copper

Early in Earth's history, there were huge volcanic outflows over the Great Lakes area. As new sediments overlaid these flows, copper solutions were crystallizing in the Precambrian flood basalts of the lava layers. The copper had been crystallized in nodules and irregular masses along fracture zones a few inches, to many feet wide. After a billion years, about a quarter of the age of the Earth, four major glaciations ground upon the edges of the old layered basalt lava beds, and exposed some of the embedded copper (Fig.2, top drawing). Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula remained high ridges of volcanic basalt. The scraping and digging by the glaciers, followed by surface exposure of the hardest material, the metal, was followed by sluicing of the land by glacial meltwaters. This left many mineral nodules of all sizes on the surface, in the huge pine forests. This was called "float copper", as it appeared that it had "floated" to the surface. Nodules of copper were discovered shining in the surf along the shores of Isle Royale. The prolonged crystallization, followed by glacial exposure, was a unique sequence of events. When exploited, it took man from the stone age to an industrial world. The half billion pounds mined in prehistory were followed by six and a half billion pounds mined in the "industrial age" in America, starting in the late 1800s.

The Uluburun Ingots

In the excellent 30-page 2002 study by Hauptmann et al, on the "Structure and Composition of Ingots from the 1300 BC Uluburun Wreck" (Ref.54) the authors say "the cargo represents the 'world market' of bulk metal in the Mediterranean. The wreck contained 354 oxhide-shaped ingots and 121 discoid, or bun ingots, altogether 10 tons of copper (see Fig.4). Additionally a ton of tin ingots were recovered, in 120 ingots and fragments, a ratio which roughly corresponds to the ratio of copper to tin in 'classical' bronzes." The cedar hull was badly damaged by a collision with the shore, but some of the wood was preserved by the corrosion products of the copper ingots. These ingots are all now in the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, in Bodrum, Turkey, with the ingots also found in the later date Cape Gelidonya shipwreck. These are more ingots than the total in all other museums and private collections put together. Some oxhide ingots have been excavated in the Minoan ruins of Hagia Triadha in Crete (dated to 1550-1500 BC), and others have been found in Sardinia, Cyprus, the Nile Delta, Turkey and Bulgaria. Researcher Zena Halpern, (Ref.71), reports "I saw heaps of copper ingots in the Maritime Museum in Haifa, Israel". "Metal bars in the oxHide shape dating from c.1700 BC have been found at Falmouth in Cornwall", England (Ref.78). Egyptian New Kingdom tomb paintings and temple reliefs depict a great number of copper ingots, but only one has been found in Egypt, as they were consumed there. (Ref.23).

For many years, the archaeological community has thought that lead isotope studies by an Oxford group, Gale et.al.(Ref.23,35,44,56) have proved that the ingots all came from Cyprus. In 1998 the Gale group (Ref.56) reports performing "approximately one thousand [!] lead isotope analyses of ores and ingots, including about 60 Uluburun ingots". (They did not test a single sample of Michigan copper.) The study reports that the "Uluburun ingots are greater than 99.5% pure copper".

A 32 page 1995 study by Budd et al (Ref.55), reviewed all the work to date, and says "all the oxhide ingots are composed of essentially pure copper... No meaningful conclusions on provenance can currently be drawn from a consideration of trace element data for oxhide ingots, ores, and artifacts on Cyprus or Sardinia ... It is no surprise that the only oxhide ingot mold ever found, at Ras Ibn Hani, Syria, in 1983 was surrounded by droplets bearing the same isotope signature as the vast majority of the oxhide ingots. The 1989 (Ref.35) Gale report concludes that the Aghia Triadha ingots on Crete "are certainly not made of Cypriot copper", and the copper source could not be identified. Dickinson, author of the Aegean Bronze Age (Ref. 1 ) "From outside the Aegean came ... oxhide ingots. These have all, when tested, proved to be non-Aegean metal." - Source/: http://www.rocksandrows.com/copper-trade-4.php
 

Re: Who Where The "Copper Culture" People?

The website I linked in my previous is quite long, but very interesting. Here I will provide some relevant excerpts I have found there. The site also contains many pics and diagrams. This is far from all the known artifacts that clearly point to Michigan being the source of much ancient copper in the Old world. When you have 8 pieces of an ancient coin found here in the US along major rivers in different states, and only 3 known of the same coin found in Ancient Mediteranian archaeological digs, it gets fairly hard to deny. Logistically it seems hard to image, until you see the evidence that the planet is expanding, and that oceans were smaller in this era. New to me was (another piece of) possible evidence that takes the Sea God Poseidon out of legend/myth and places him as a real person in history. I laud the efforts of people who continue to break through the 'knowledge filter'. - Barto

"Silver in the Copper

Pieces of the "native" Michigan copper sometimes have crystals of silver inclusions, mechanically enclosed but not alloyed; this is called "halfbreed copper". In the commercial mines, the miners are said to have cut these silver nodules off with knives, and take them home. The presence of silver nodules in "Old Copper Culture" tools shows they were made by hammering, called "cold working". These hammered weapons and tools found in Hopewell mounds sometimes "show specks of silver, found only in copper of Lake Superior" (Ref. 69). Apparently, one instance of identification by silver inclusion has occurred overseas: In this letter of December 1St, 1995, Palden Jenkins, a historian from Glastonbury, writes, "I met the farmer who owns the land on which a megalithic stone circle is, called Merry Maidens, in far west Cornwall. While clearing hedges, he discovered an arrowhead, which was sent to the British Museum for identification. The answer returned: '5,000 years old; source, Michigan, USA'." (Ref.76).

Minoan Traders

A variety of cultural groups were involved in the mining, shipping, and trading of copper, among them the Egyptians, the Megalithic peoples of the western coast of Europe, the Atlanteans, and the Minoans. The Minoans have the reputation of controlling the copper trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. "It is in the New Palace period in Bronze Age Minoan Crete, that we find a large increase in population, particularly in settlements along the coasts, the growth of towns, which in some cases surround mini-palaces, luxurious separate town houses at palatial and other sites, and fine country villas ... Villas and houses at Ayia Triadha and Tylissos contained not only weights and loom weights, but also copper oxhide ingots and Linear A tablets, and both are rich in luxury products and bronze objects. Minoan prowess in metal weapon production was not limited to the long sword, but included the short sword, the solid long dagger and the shoe-socketed and tube-socketed spearhead and arrowhead, all of which may have made their first Aegean appearance in Crete" ... Neopalatial Crete is extremely rich in bronze, but very poor in sources of copper and of course totally lacking in sources of tin" (Ref.23).

The Newberry Tablet of Newberry, Michigan (Fig.6) is in a Cypriot/Cretan sylabary. Cretan script may have been the basis of the Cree sylabary (Ref. 7), and Mayan writing (Ref.3). The "Cavern of Glyphs" on the Ohio River had images of clothed figures that "singularly recall the dress of the Minoans, as seen on the frescoes at Knossos in Crete" (Ref.79). A Minoan pot has been unearthed in Louisiana. The Olmecs laid mosaic tiles at La Venta, (Mexico) upon asphalt, the same technique used in Crete (Ref.3). The excavation of the wealthy grave goods at Hallstatt (see Fig.5) show that traders brought Minoan pots as well as copperlbronze pots to trade for salt. It appears that the ruling elite of Hallstatt were among the end customers of Michigan copper, as well as the Egyptians."
 

I was curator for the Oconto Archaic Copper Museum for three years and now I run the Archiac Copper Newsletter (ACN) to update subscribers on my research, which means trying to trace the evolution of the copper industry from its earliest days as much as 10,000 years ago, up to European contact. I can tell you that there were a lot of villages, settlements, worksites, all that included a lot of copper artifacts found, and two civilizations rose up, the Hopewells and the Mississippians, who had a pretty vaste trade network. And yes, these are all ancestors of the Indians still living in this country today. Nothing really mysterious about it. Lots of research has been done. Please see my website for more - and consider subscribing to the ACN - it's free! Home - Monette Bebow-Reinhard
 

Cannonman17 said:
I simply can not believe the amount of misinformation about the use of copper that has been copy and pasted in this thread.
Click to expand...
I know the thread is a couple of years old but would you care to elaborate on your statement?

I recently found a socketed spearhead and my interest in the Old Copper Culture has been sparked. I'd like to learn more.
 

Read up about the Michigan mound builders.
There are thousands of artifacts they ruled out as frauds in the 1800s. The tablets are extremely interesting
 

Stick with it fella. Stick with it. Ran across an article recently that stated chunk copper,ten pound range was wrapped and saved whole and well thought of when I was poking around the ontonagon boulder sites on the web. Always something new to find out.
The wiki article might help date your find but don,t trust but compare others till multiples give a better idea. A precious relic you hold. A fascinating history of its creation and use and its user!
Great Lakes Copper Culture : Gallery Index

Old Copper Complex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Last edited:
america unearthed did a show about that copper did anyone see it?
 

releventchair said:
Stick with it fella. Stick with it. Ran across an article recently that stated chunk copper,ten pound range was wrapped and saved whole and well thought of when I was poking around the ontonagon boulder sites on the web. Always something new to find out.
The wiki article might help date your find but don,t trust but compare others till multiples give a better idea. A precious relic you hold. A fascinating history of its creation and use and its user!
Great Lakes Copper Culture : Gallery Index

Old Copper Complex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. I hadn't seen that first one.

I posted this in the Todays Finds a few day back. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/today-s-finds/412668-old-copper-culture-socketed-spearpoint.html
 

I remember reading once, that they had some sort of process to harden the copper, that can't be matched today.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

ID Needed-Northeast Points.

⬅️ Previous Thread

Woodland Stone Tool

Next Thread ➡️

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Metal Detecting Stuff

Latest Discussions

Back
Top