Revised Old Copper Culture Timeline.

[CMD]

Study establishes an earlier timeline for the Old Copper Culture.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021...t-coppersmiths

“About 10 years ago, Pompeani began doctoral research that cast doubt on the Old Copper timeline. He extracted sediment cores from lakes adjacent to prehistoric mines on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royale and measured trace metals in the cores, including lead and titanium, that had been released by processing the ore. The analyses showed copper mining began about 9500 years ago in some areas—some 3500 years earlier than once thought. It also ended earlier, about 5400 years ago, Pompeani reported in The Holocene in 2015”.

“This month in Radiocarbon, the team reports that the most reliable dates, combined with the sediment data, indicate the Old Copper Culture emerged at least 9500 years agoand peaked between 7000 and 5000 years ago. That makes it at least as old, and perhaps older, than copper-working cultures documented in the Middle East, where archaeologists have documented a copper pendant believed to be 8700 years old”.

[Uncle Trav]

Good read. Thanks for posting the link. The Old Copper Culture has always interested me. I have spent time on both the Keweenaw and Isle Royale. Evidence of ancient mining can be found all over Isle Royale and it boggles the mind to think of such an endeavor in the remote past. One area on the island was recently designated a National Historic Landmark confirming it’s significance in the cultural and archaeological record.