An empirical evaluation of copper procurement and distribution: elemental analysis of Scioto Valley Hopewell copper

In the first millennium AD, peoples across the North American Arctic began to use and exchange metal. A group known as the Late Dorset (AD 500–1300) were the first to widely exchange metal in the Eastern Arctic. However, due to differential taphonomic processes and past excavation methods, metal objects in existing collections are rare although geographically widespread. This has led to metal being seen as a broadly exchanged but uncommon raw material among Late Dorset. This article expands the known scale of Late Dorset metal use by analyzing the blade slot thicknesses of bone and ivory objects from sites across the Eastern Arctic and comparing them to the thicknesses of associated lithic and metal endblades. These results demonstrate that Late Dorset used metal at least as frequently as stone for some activities. Given the few and geographically discrete sources, metal would have been exchanged over thousands of kilometers of fragmented Arctic landscape. The lack of similar evidence in earlier periods indicates intergroup interaction increases significantly with the Late Dorset. It is through these same vectors that knowledge and information would have flowed. Metal, consequently, represents the best material for understanding the maximum extent and intensity of their interaction networks.

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 86%

Detecting Early Widespread Metal Use in the Eastern North American Arctic around AD 500–1300

Jolicoeur

2020

“…These parts have received uneven scholarship. Researchers (e.g., Emerson et al 2013; Hill et al 2018; Hughes 2006) have made much progress identifying sources of exotic materials. Their findings are important in building and interrogating models for how and with and by whom these materials were obtained (Bernardini and Carr 2005:633–635; Carr 2005a; Spielmann 2009:180).…”

Section: Scioto Hopewell Craft Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ritual Economy and the Organization of Scioto Hopewell Craft Production: Insights from the Outskirts of the Mound City Group

Everhart

Ruby

2020

This article offers insights into the organization of Scioto Hopewell craft production and examines the implications of this organization through the lens of ritual economy. We present a novel analysis of investigations at the North 40 site, concluding that it is a craft production site located on the outskirts of the renowned Mound City Group. High-resolution landscape-scale magnetic survey revealed a cluster of three large structures and two rows of associated pits; one of the buildings and three of the pits were sampled in excavations. Evidence from the North 40 site marks this as the best-documented Scioto Hopewell craft production site. Mica, chert, and copper were crafted here in contexts organized outside the realm of domestic household production and consumption. Other material remains from the site suggest that crafting was specialized and embedded in ceremonial contexts. This analysis of the complex organization of Scioto Hopewell craft production provides grounds for further understanding the elaborate ceremonialism practiced by Middle Woodland (AD 1–400) societies and adds to the known complexity of craft production in small-scale societies. Furthermore, this article contributes to a growing body of literature demonstrating the utility of ritual economy as a framework for approaching the sociality of small-scale societies.

“…Copper in its raw geological form played a central role in North America's social and economic networks from the Archaic period (Hill et al 2016, 2018; Martin 1999; Sanger et al 2018, 2019; Stevenson 1976) through the Early, Middle, and Late Woodland periods (Ehrhardt 2005, 2009; Lattanzi 2007, 2022; Levine 1999; Penney 1985; Railey 1996; Seeman et al 2019). During the Late Woodland period (ca.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Seventeenth-Century Copper Trade: An Analysis of Smelted Copper from Sites in Virginia and North Carolina

Stevenson,

Gunter-Bassett,

Dussubieux

2024

When the colonists who made up the Virginia Company of London established James Fort on the banks of the James River in 1607, they brought with them sheets of scrap copper. Based in large part on the experience of the earlier Roanoke Colony, the English knew that copper was a highly prized material among Native peoples of the Chesapeake, and they brought it with them as a trade item. Artifacts made from European smelted copper (impure copper and copper alloy) have been found at contact period sites (ca. AD 1607–1680) throughout Virginia, and James Fort has long been hypothesized to be the primary distribution point for that material. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the elemental composition of a sample of smelted copper artifacts from James Fort (1607–ca. 1625), as well as samples of copper artifacts from five Native sites in central Virginia. We also analyzed a sample of copper artifacts from another well-known European fort site—Fort San Juan (1567–1568) in North Carolina. The results suggest that although a portion of the smelted copper that circulated through Native networks in Virginia came from James Fort, the rest of it possibly came from English, French, or Dutch distribution points to the northeast.