Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-8zxtt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-15T23:31:24.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Metallurgical Characteristics of North American Prehistoric Copper Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David L. Schroeder  and
Katharine C. Ruhl
David L. Schroeder
Affiliation:
General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York
Katharine C. Ruhl
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The use of native copper in some prehistoric cultures of North America was both extensive and technically skillful. The remains of pits sunk into every major native copper lode in the Lake Superior region (Griffin 1961; Drier and DuTemple 1961: 16; Quimby 1960: 52-63; West 1929) show that the material was mined in quantity. Float copper, found on the surface, was also used. The Indians appreciated some of the properties of copper and made use of these in shaping tools, weapons, and ornaments of high-quality workmanship. Figure 1 shows typical examples of the thousands of beautifully shaped native copper artifacts which have been found in mid-North America. The development of metallurgical techniques is usually supposed to follow a progression of hammering, annealing, melting the native metal, smelting ores, casting, and alloying. Curiously enough, the techniques of copper working in North America evolve only through the hammering and annealing stages, and apparently they remained at this level for centuries. In this paper the authors examine some of the metallurgical properties of the artifacts and the native copper from which they were made.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 1968 , pp. 162 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baldwin, W. M. Jr. 1941 Discussion. Transactions of the Metallurgical Society of AIME, Vol. 143, pp. 284. New York.Google Scholar
Drier, R. W. and DuTemple, O. J. (editors) 1961 Prehistoric Copper Mining in the Lake Superior Region. Library of Congress No. 61-19236, pp. 16. Washington.Google Scholar
Griffin, J. B. (editor) 1961 Lake Superior Copper and the Indians: Miscellaneous Studies of Great Lakes Prehistory. Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 17. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Leslie, W. C. and Others 1966 Diffusion of Copper in Native Copper-Silver “Halfbreeds.” MS, U.S. Steel Corporation, Monroeville, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Martin, P. S., Quimby, G. I., and Collier, D. 1946 Indians Before Columbus. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Moorehead, W. K. 1932 Etowah Papers, 1 — Exploration of the Etowah Site in Georgia. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Phillips, V. A. and Phillips, A. 1952 The Effect of Certain Solute Elements on the Recrystallization of Copper. Journal Institute of Metals, Vol. 81, pp. 185–208. London.Google Scholar
Quimby, G. I. 1960 Indian Life in the Upper Great Lakes. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Smart, J. S. Jr., Smith, A. A. Jr., and Phillips, A. J. 1941 Preparation and Some Properties of High Purity Copper. Transactions of the Metallurgical Society of AIME, Vol. 143, pp. 272–86. New York.Google Scholar
Smith, C. S. 1965 Metallographic Study of Early Artifacts Made from Native Copper. Paper presented at XI International Congress of the History of Science, Warsaw, Poland, August 24-29, 1965.Google Scholar
Watson, V. D. 1950 The Wulfing Plates. Washington University Studies, New Series, Social and Philosophical Sciences, No. 8, pp. 2–5. St. Louis.Google Scholar
West, G. A. 1929 Copper; Its Mining and Use by the Aborigines of the Lake Superior Region. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, Vol. 10, No. 1. Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Williams, S. and Goggin, J. M. 1956 The Long Nosed God Mask in Eastern United States. Missouri Archaeologist, Vol. 18, No. 3. Columbia.Google Scholar
Wllloughby, C. C. 1922 The Turner Group of Earthworks, Hamilton County, Ohio. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 8, No. 3. Cambridge.Google Scholar