Native copper tools of the Old Copper Complex
Herramientas de cobre nativo del Complejo del Cobre Antiguo
- Date
- c. 4000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Isle Royale and Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, United States
- Credited to
- Peoples of the Old Copper Complex (Great Lakes Archaic)
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Hunter-gatherers of the Great Lakes region mined native copper in open pits and cold-hammered and annealed it into points, socketed axes, awls and fishhooks. It was an independent metallurgy without smelting, based only on the mechanical working of the metal.
Dates are very uncertain: most authors place the Complex between 4000 and 1000 BC, but use of copper from about 7000 BC has been proposed and the cultural attribution of many finds is debated.
What it led to
- a copper exchange network across eastern North America for millennia
- metal tools in societies without agriculture or smelting
- a metalworking tradition continued by the Hopewell and Mississippian cultures
Built on
Links
Sources✓ verified 2026-11-06
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/abs/on-the-timing-of-the-old-copper-complex-in-north-america-a-comparison-of-radiocarbon-dates-from-different-archaeological-contexts/E46715993E58EDC94F225CC6FE776CF2
- https://archaeology.org/issues/july-august-2021/digs-discoveries/digs-michigan-old-copper-culture/