The Old Copper Culture in Eastern North America	by Dr. E. J. Neiburger
Central States Archaeological Societies 2024 January Journal	Waukegan, Illinois

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Figure 1. Collection of Great Lakes float copper. Note the size of the 5” long pen. The large round nugget is approximately 10” across and weighs 27 pounds (E. Neiburger, 1997).

Abstract
Eastern North America possesses large deposits of native (float) copper. This 99.5+% pure metal, similar to the more plentiful Great Lakes deposits, was used by the early Eastern Indians to make unique tools, weapons, ornaments and spiritual objects. Though seldom recognized, these Eastern deposits were part of the Old Copper Complex. Recent analytical technology has een used to identify and match the original sources of Great Lakes and Eastern copper deposits and artifacts. Results have been disappointing with no exact matches of trace elements in different samples and only a variety of “opinions” and “oversold theories” posing as scientific fact. More work in this area is needed.

The Old Copper Complex
The Old Copper Culture (Complex) of North America lasted from about 8000 BCE to Historic times. It involved numerous cultures (thus the term “Complex”) including Archaic, Early-Middle-Late Woodland, Mississippian and Historic periods whose technologies involved the use of float copper. This metal was found primarily on the surface of the ground, in glacial drifts and shallow mines (Fig. 1). Until recently it was believed that most float copper in North America was found in the Upper Great Lakes area. This copper occurred most commonly in the form of small nuggets scattered by glacial activity. These deposits were composed of 99.5+ % pure metal and thus did not require smelting or any advanced processing other than picking up lumps of copper from the ground surface, stream beds or shallow pits and wrought working. Occasionally the copper was encased in stone which required simple hammering to free the metal from its lithic matrix. The deposits were once so plentiful in many areas that even after 8000 years of continuously being collected, the early archaeologists bragged that they often could amass 100+ pounds of float copper in a few hours of surface collecting.

This float copper, being so pure and soft, could easily be hand wrought (hot or cold hammered, ground, swaged, drawn, polished) into a wide variety of hand tools, weapons and ornaments by the Natives. There is evidence of widespread annealing (heat softening) and occasional casting of float copper (Neiburger 1985, 1987). In the Great Lakes area, spear tips, axes, gouges, knives, swords, awls, spuds, fish hooks, harpoons, weights, jewelry, art and religious items abound. Well over 50,000 Old Copper items have been found and reported in the literature (R. Drier 1961) (Fig. 2).

Float copper has been found in three major areas of North America: 1. The Southwest, including Northern Mexico, Arizona (Pima, Clifton, Cochise Counties) and New Mexico ( Santa Rita, Hillsboro). 2. The Eastern seaboard and the southern Appalachian area and 3. The Great Lakes (W. Weed, 1911, S. Martin 1999). Great quantities of float copper and handmade artifacts found in the Great Lakes region exceeded the quantities found in the other areas of the continent. Since the 1840s, most archaeologists believed that mostly all Old Copper artifacts came from the Great Lakes area. There was little attention paid to the belief that Old Copper artifacts and float copper came from anywhere else (e.g., Eastern US). Copper found at distant sites was cosidered to be the result of human trading from the Great Lakes area and occasional geologic activity. This was a serious misconception held by mainstream archaeology until recently. It was a failure of those archaeologists to scientifically analyze the existing evidence, and thus the need for accurate trace element testing.

Sources of Old Copper
Float copper deposits abound in the Upper Great Lakes and to a lesser degree, along the Eastern sixth of the US and Canada ( which is the prime focus of this paper). This was an area where massive ice sheets and glacial activity continuously scraped up underlying rock containing copper deposits. These deposits formed around 1.06 billion years ago by precipitation of mineral salts in our early planet’s formation (H. Cornwall 1956, T. Bornhorst 1988). The float copper was scraped loose, compressed, rolled and “floated” on the ...

 

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