Finding copper artifact sites

[Brad_WI]

Just wondering how you guys go about finding sites to hunt for copper artifacts. Since there are basically no records of the location of these ancient villages, it can be very hard to locate new spots. Do you stumble upon copper producing sites when hunting fur trade items, or accidentally find a piece here and there when hunting for something else? Or do you pick your hunting sites solely on geographic features....taking various "stabs in the dark" until you find something you like? It would be nice to just see how other people go about locating their next hunting spots. Thanks for your thoughts!

[Johnny Bravo]

For me it was pure luck, didn't even know there was stuff around here. We stumbled across a large site and were looking for stone, then my sister lost her ring so I went and rented a detector and went to find it, the first thing I dug was an awesome copper knife, I did find the ring too.
Since then every place that we have found stone I detect and just about every spot I find copper, not sure if it is just luck that I'm finding copper at ever spot, I have yet to test it at a different location away from where I look now. This is the first time I ever detected let alone found copper so I'm calling it luck that I'm finding.

[Brad_WI]

I have a spot where a friend of mine found a few boxes of stone points and eyeballed a copper CELT so that is probably where i should try. I also have two other field where I find stone points on a consistent basis so those could produce as well. Just have to wait till the fields are plowed...

[oilwick1]

There is no end to the potential sites for copper artifacts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. As detectors have gotten better over the years more copper artifacts are found every year. Collectors have only scratched the surface of potential sites. We have used several methods to find new sites over the years - topographic maps, proximity to waterways (rivers), single finds reported by surface hunters, finds reported by farmers plowing fields, finds reported at building /construction sites.

Remember that when these artifacts were being produced the landscape looked significantly different than it does today. Try to imagine the landscape as it might have looked thousands of years ago.

See my website at http://www.copperculture.homestead.com to see where we have found artifacts.

Oilwick1

[diggemall]

Were you there for the WI River drawdown ? How was the hunting ??

Diggem'

[oilwick1]

Nope, I missed the WI River drawdown this time but have hit it in the past in other areas.

Oilwick1

[Cannonman17]

Stevens Point was a great hunt! Surprised I didn't see you there - or maybe I did- God knows there was enough people out there.

[Michigan Badger]

I don't know how they find the exact hunting sites but I do know some are giant and very productive. One group of hunters here is Michigan finds hundreds of points, spears, awls, etc., every summer.

Not far from me is a state trooper who travels into Michigan's UP somewhere and she finds large Copper Culture spear points on a regular basis. She has a large display in her office I'm told. No, she's not saying where.

If you find the right location you'll kill the finds. Evidently the Copper Culture people where in great numbers until they mysteriously disappeared.

[Rege-PA]

Any ideas as to why these people disappeared or quit using native copper, perhaps they exhausted the easy deposits and over a period of time went back to lithics? Just wondering.

[Michigan Badger]

Any ideas as to why these people disappeared or quit using native copper, perhaps they exhausted the easy deposits and over a period of time went back to lithics? Just wondering.

Well, this isn't my thread but I'll say that the ideas and theories in regard to the Copper Culture people are from one extreme to the other. Some very nasty wars have developed over this subject.

I have my own opinion but really that's all it is is an opinion. The fact is nobody knows for sure. And too, carbon dating is not at all accurate like they try to tell us. It's entirely based upon assumptions. We don't really know for sure how old these relics are.

Certain things are true though. Whoever they were they stopped suddenly as if something swept them away. I've been told by hunters that they find their hammers and tools sitting right with unfinished work.

Perhaps some sudden spread of flu? And enemy attack? Some catastrophic event? War? Who knows? Nobody, that's who.

[Rege-PA]

I guess the culture itself was defined by the limits of the native copper out crops, still to disappear completely and have the technology lost is baffling. Even if they were conquered by another culture, one would think that the good points of the technology would carry on. Much to think about here.

[WhiteCountyPaleo]

That looks like a sweet spot!!!!

[Cannonman17]

Any ideas as to why these people disappeared or quit using native copper, perhaps they exhausted the easy deposits and over a period of time went back to lithics? Just wondering.

Well, this isn't my thread but I'll say that the ideas and theories in regard to the Copper Culture people are from one extreme to the other. Some very nasty wars have developed over this subject.

I have my own opinion but really that's all it is is an opinion. The fact is nobody knows for sure. And too, carbon dating is not at all accurate like they try to tell us. It's entirely based upon assumptions. We don't really know for sure how old these relics are.

Certain things are true though. Whoever they were they stopped suddenly as if something swept them away. I've been told by hunters that they find their hammers and tools sitting right with unfinished work.

Perhaps some sudden spread of flu? And enemy attack? Some catastrophic event? War? Who knows? Nobody, that's who.

Actually.... carbon dating is pretty accurate when you can get your hands on samples that haven't been contaminated. The carbon 14 isotope degrades at a known rate and that's a fact. The wood that we sometimes find in the sockets of copper artifacts seems to often time be preserved well enough for carbon dating.
The copper culture is/was not some foreign group of people who used the copper while the other Natives used stone. Stone and copper were both used by regular Native American groups throughout the Northwoods.. We know this because there have been numerous sights excavated containing both lithic and copper assemblages, likewise we know that copper had been used continuously more or less, from 5-6000 B.P. up to the time of contact. There was no mass extinction or mass exodus of these copper aged people at all, their descendants still live amongst us.
As more copper age sites are excavated over the coming years we will get more information and more carbon dates for sure and I think that what we will find is that the use of copper was FAR more extensive than what anybody would believe now. I'm sure that some of the tribes/cultures who controlled the far North would have specialized in the production of at least raw copper for trade much like others did with high quality stone material. These people may have developed advanced copper working skills as well, in fact it's likely, but none of them (speaking strictly from archaeological evidence) ever solely relied on copper.