(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ancient America: The Old Copper People [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-26 It should be noted that the Old Copper era was not the earliest use of copper in the region: the Eagle Lake copper spear point dates to about 6,500 BCE and is, so far, the oldest dated copper artifact. It was dated using radiocarbon technology: the copper spear point itself was not dated (metal artifacts can’t be dated via radiocarbon methods), but it was attached to a maple wood shaft which was dated. During the nineteenth century, non-Indians who were settling in the region noticed the evidence of the Old Copper culture—primarily copper artifacts and the remains of the ancient mines dug by the Indians to extract the copper—but most did not associate this evidence with the ancestors of the American Indians who they were displacing. In an article in American Archaeology, David Malakoff describes it this way: “In the late 1880s, when explorers and settlers reported finding numerous copper artifacts and mining pits in the Great Lakes region that appeared to be very old, many scholars were dismissive. Some argued that Native Americans were too backward to have developed copperworking technologies, and they even suggested that the artifacts had actually been imported from Europe or made by some unknown group of migrants.” In order for the United States to justify its policies of separating American Indians from the lands on which they had lived for millennia, it was important to create a mythology based on the stereotype of American Indians as nomadic hunters and gatherers who never developed the land and who lacked sophisticated technologies. The copper artifacts and the mines from which the copper came did not support this mythology. The copper tools made by the Old Copper Indians included leaf-shaped knives and spear-points, fishhooks, harpoon points, gouges, chisels, awls, wedges, punches, needles, drills, and axes. In addition, they also used copper for making jewelry, such as earspools. In his Dictionary of Native American Terminology, Carl Waldman writes: “Indians used natural copper deposits, both sheets in rock fissures or nuggets in the soil, to make tools and ornaments. They shaped it by heating, then hammering it. Their copper artifacts have been found beyond their homeland, proving widespread trade relationships.” With regard to the manufacture of copper artifacts, David Malakoff writes: “There is no evidence Old Copper people used smelting and casting, which involves melting ores and using molds.” The Old Copper People were hunters and gatherers. They hunted big game such as caribou and deer, fished, and gathered a variety of wild plants for food, fiber, and medicine. While copper nuggets can be found on the surface, most copper lies underground and, consequently, the Old Copper People dug thousands of mining pits. Some of the mining pits are up to 30 feet deep. With hammerstones, birchbark buckets, and a system of levels, the miners extracted the copper from the earth. One example of an ancient copper mine was discovered in 1848 by Mr. S. O. Knap of the Minnesota Mining Company. In his 1871 book Notes on American Archaeology, John Baldwin reports: “At the Minnesota mine, the greatest depth of their excavations was thirty feet; and here, not far below the bottom of a trough-like cavity, among a mass of leaves, sticks and water, Mr. Knapp discovered a detached mass of copper weighing near six tons.” The mass of copper had been raised several feet, on timbers, by means of wedges. There was also a stone maul weighing 36 pounds and a copper maul weighing twenty-five pounds. Old trees with 395 growth rings stood in the debris. John Baldwin also describes another ancient copper mine: “Here, in the face of a vertical bluff, was discovered an ancient, artificial, cavern-like recess, twenty-five feet in horizontal length, fifteen feet high, and twelve feet deep.” John Baldwin also reports: “Some of the blocks of stone removed from this recess would weigh two or three tons, and must have required levers to get them out. Beneath the surface rubbish were the remains off a gutter or trough made of cedar, placed there to carry off water from the mine.” John Baldwin’s 1871 report makes it clear that prehistoric American Indians were sophisticated copper miners. David Malakoff summarizes the Old Copper People this way: “During the Archaic period these hunter-gatherers became some of the world’s first copper miners and metal workers. They learned to identify copper nuggets that had eroded from the bedrock and to extract ore from the region’s abundant deposits—the largest and purest copper lodes on earth. And they pioneered techniques for shaping the copper into a vast array of tools, including projectile points, knives, axes, awls, and fishing hooks.” More Ancient America Ancient America: A very brief overview of the Hopewell moundbuilders Ancient America: Linking people to the cosmos in ancient Ohio Ancient America: A very brief overview of the Adena moundbuilders Ancient America: The prehistoric Southwest, 1375-1425 CE Ancient America: The Pleistocene Extinctions Ancient America: Bears (revised) Ancient America: A very short overview of Clovis Ancient America: Hunting Tools in British Columbia [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/26/2155091/-Ancient-America-The-Old-Copper-People Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/