Isle Royale National Park, Lake Superior.Credit: Kenneth Norton/Alamy Stock Photo
Posted on 02/21/2023 4:27:43 PM PST by SunkenCiv
These prehistoric mines' ages were a "long-standing mystery," says David Pompeani, a geologist at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Previous research used archaeological remnants to evaluate when mine sites were active, but later mining at the same sites often obliterated ancient artifacts, Pompeani says. To work around this, he and his colleagues took a different approach: instead of artifacts, they looked for signs of mining preserved in the environment.
For a recent study in Anthropocene, the researchers examined sediments from two small inland lakes near ancient mines on Lake Superior's isolated Isle Royale in Michigan. Such sediments are affected by annual changes and thus act a little like tree rings. Each layer is a snapshot of what happened in a given year, including weather events, wildfires—and pollution...
Before modern machinery, extracting copper was labor-intensive. Native Americans hammered it out of the rock—hard, dusty work that lofted fine particles of stone and metals into the air. Pompeani says they probably also used bonfires to warm this rock, softening the copper and liquefying the easily meltable lead. These fires volatilized the lead and wafted it over the surrounding area, sprinkling particles onto the land and lakes. Analyzing lake sediments, the researchers found evidence of a peak in lead pollution around 6,000 years ago during the Archaic period. This suggested a simultaneous peak in large-scale copper mining—and matched archaeological evidence from the same period...
Pompeani says the study confirms some of the world's earliest-known large-scale mining efforts and puts a new spin on how Indigenous societies operated...
This article was originally published with the title "Major Miners" in Scientific American 328, 2, 22 (February 2023).
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
Isle Royale National Park, Lake Superior.Credit: Kenneth Norton/Alamy Stock Photo
It was the Hebrews under David and Solomon. They left proto-Hebraic writings, even as far away as in the midwest.
Bookmark
Indigenous peeps raping the land?
How inconvienient for The Narrative...
History I have never researched, especially after working in the metal-working industry for over 43 years (and my father before me) and I have never asked this question-“ When and how did humans EVER get the idea to mine ores for metals?”
Did they get EPA approval? Mining permits? Mining rights? These are the questions we must ask.
It sounds as if the indigenous Norte Americanos had a somewhat earlier bronze age than Africa, Europe of India. Hmmmm.
Not to speak about refining and alloying....
They didn’t. There’s the Los Lunas inscription:
https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/mcculloch.2/arch/loslunas.html
OTOH, the lead crosses often discussed were studied decades ago by Barry Fell, who found them to be based on various Latin mottos of old European dynasties and whatnot, a modern forgery.
Over thousands of years, there were plenty of visitors and probably trade, by lots of people. Fell pointed out that the first testimony regarding Precolumbian contact was reported by Columbus, who recorded an old retired diver in the Caribbean, who when youn had found (what turned out to be) a Phoneician coin on the seabed, and turned it into a pendant which Columbus examined and drew. Columbus researched his trip by interviewing Icelanders. In the late 15th c, the abandonment of Greenland was only a couple centuries at most in the past.
The Romans were very accomplished at seagoing trade with extremely large vessels. They were present in the Canary Islands and the Azores (and were not the first visitors/residents) and apparently reached South America:
https://freerepublic.com/tag/bayofjars/index
And there’s the Cocaine Mummies:
https://freerepublic.com/tag/cocainemummies/index
At least they didn’t rip the wiring out of people’s walls.
Barry Fell told us all about it a long time ago.
Amazing.... great post.
a new spin on how Indigenous societies operated...
—
Spin indeed. As no one can say what happened to the 250 million tons of 98% pure copper ore. Another guess by an archeologist out to find grant money to live on by proving a theory while disregarding major facts.
For comparison: modern mined copper ore is ~3% pure.
It sounds as if the indigenous Norte Americanos had a somewhat earlier bronze age than Africa, Europe of India. Hmmmm.
—
250,000,000 worth of near pure copper ore. Where did it go? The finding only shows when some mining took place but tells nothing more. Was it all taken then or was the vast bulk taken far earlier by another means?
That amount in that purity would have supplied all of the Copper and Bronze Ages world wide.
These copper deposits reminded me of the story of “Saguenay” along the St. Lawrence. At the end of the following excerpt they make the link too!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story of the mirage-like Kingdom of Saguenay dates to the 1530s, when the French explorer Jacques Cartier made his second journey to Canada in search of gold and a northwest passage to Asia. As his expedition traveled along the St. Lawrence River in modern day Quebec, Cartier’s Iroquois guides began to whisper tales of “Saguenay,” a vast kingdom that lay to the north. According to a chief named Donnacona, the mysterious realm was rich in spices, furs and precious metals, and was populated by blond, bearded men with pale skin....
Legends about Saguenay would haunt French explorers in North America for several years, but treasure hunters never found any trace of the mythical land of plenty or its white inhabitants. Most historians now dismiss it as a myth or tall tale, but some argue the natives may have actually been referring to copper deposits in the northwest. Still others have suggested that the Indians’ Kingdom of Saguenay could have been inspired by a centuries old Norse outpost left over from Viking voyages to North America.
If you were going to expend all that labor on mining and presumably refining copper from raw ore, wouldn’t you have to have an end plan? Like making utensils, or weapons or something useful to a primitive culture??
But as far as I know, there are no artifacts from that period that have been located in or near the mining site. Or anywhere is the North American continent???d
Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?
I don't know about 6 millennia ago, but 5 millennia ago...
Copper knife, spear points, awls, and spade, from the Late Archaic period, Wisconsin, 3000 BC-1000 BC.
The copper mined in the UP wound up all over North America, but the urban populations in NA were rare -- so most of the copper did indeed end up in Central America.
Too bad, too, in my misspent youth I was beguiled by the possibility that, despite the logistical problems (Niagara Falls for one thing), the copper had wound up shipped out to the Mediterranean basin.
A good deal more is known about European and African (and Middle Eastern, and southern Asian) copper sources now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
