Old Copper Complex: "among the oldest known metalworking societies in the world" (western Great Lakes, about 8500–3580 years before present; study published 2021)

SUMMARYOld Copper Complex: "among the oldest known metalworking societies in the world" (western Great Lakes, about 8500–3580 years before present; study published 2021) [Connections: Tech of the Americas, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDPompeani, Steinman, Abbott and others tested 53 radiocarbon dates tied to copper artifacts and mines (8 new, 45 published before) against six lake-sediment records from the Michigan Copper District. The abstract says organic material embedded in 15 Old Copper Complex artifacts spans "8500 to 3580 cal BP." It argues the younger dates from the mines "reflect abandonment and infill of the mines" rather than the time of mining. It concludes the Old Copper Complex is "among the oldest known metalworking societies in the world." Wikipedia's summary quotes the same paper pushing the oldest copper artifact age "to at least 7690 ± 40 BP," and cites Gibbon (1998) that "Major quarries were located on Isle Royale, the Keweenaw Peninsula, and the Brule River." Wikipedia says the copper was heated, annealed and hammered (no citation given on that line); its metallurgy article says native copper was "cold hammered" from early in the Archaic period

PATTERNThis is the mainstream journal record, not a community claim. It puts metalworking in the Americas at the same deep age as the earliest copper working anywhere

LENS (WW9)"We were the copper people thousands of years." The status quo's own lab work says so

OPENThe full paper is paywalled; only the abstract was read. Which nations' oral histories connect to these mines needs deep research with Anishinaabe and other Great Lakes knowledge keepers

SOURCEPompeani et al. 2021, Radiocarbon 63(2):513–531, abstract; Wikipedia, "Old Copper Complex". Primary: DOI 10.1017/RDC.2021.7.