The analysis of copper artifacts of the copper inuit

Identifying American native and European smelted coppers with pXRF: a case study of artifacts from the Upper Great Lakes region

“…Native copper, Hancock et al (1994Hancock et al ( , 1993Hancock et al ( , 1991 Native copper, Wayman et al (1985) Native copper Dussubieux et al (2008) these types are "unexpected" in their contexts and might not be noticed in a large assemblage of metal artifacts. Artifacts from Category B show Native peoples' early adoption and modification of European materials.…”

“…Archaeologists have visually documented Native American metalworking techniques applied to copper artifacts to categorize technological styles of working native and smelted copper (Latta et al, 1998;Anselmi, 2008). In addition, sophisticated analytical techniques such as Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) (Wayman et al, 1985;Hancock et al, 1991Hancock et al, , 1993Hancock et al, , 1994Cooper et al, 2008;Michelaki et al, 2013 (INAA of copper and brass)), Particle X-Ray Induced Emission (PIXE) (Gersch et al, 1998;Ehrhardt et al, 2000;Fleming and Swann, 2000), Laser Ablation e Inductively Coupled Plasma e Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) (McKnight, 2007;Dussubieux et al, 2008;Hill, 2012) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) (Ehrhardt and Kaiser, 2011;Abel and Burke, 2014) have been applied to determine the composition of metal artifacts. Previous research established that North American native copper contains very low levels of impurity in contrast with European smelted copper.…”

Trace element and Pb isotope provenance analyses of native copper in northwestern North America: results of a recent pilot study using INAA, ICP-MS, and LA-MC-ICP-MS

“…Silicon, Ca, Al, and Mg can be present in native copper in the form of non-metallic inclusions, most frequently as silicates or oxides (Patterson, 1971;Rapp et al, 2000;Wayman, 1989). Numerous additional elements have been detected in trace amounts during previous analyses of native copper from numerous sources including: Au, Co, Hg, Ni, Se, Sn, Zn (Wayman et al, 1985), Cr, La, Sb, W (Rapp et al, 2000, see page 49 for complete list of elements detected).…”

“…These 14 artifacts were reanalyzed for the present study (see Section 5.1). In their study of Copper Inuit copper metallurgy Wayman et al (1985) subjected five geologic specimens and four artifacts of native copper from Banks Island to INAA (Table 7) in order to distinguish native from 18th century smelted copper. Rapp et al (2000: pp.…”

“…1). Native copper provenance research in northwestern North America has been discussed by a number of researchers (e.g., Blake, 2004;Burley, 1981;Franklin et al, 1981;Shinkwin, 1979) and trace element analyses have been performed on both artifacts and geological specimens (e.g., Franklin et al, 1981;Rapp et al, 2000;Veakis, 1979;Wayman et al, 1985;Witthoft and Eyman, 1969). However, not all of these studies had native copper provenance as a goal, and those that did analyzed an insufficient quantity of material to assess the potential value of this type of research in the region.…”