On the Source of Copper at the Etowah Site, Georgia

Abstract

For some time it has been almost tacitly accepted that most or all of the pre-Columbian copper artifacts found in the eastern United States were manufactured of native copper recovered from the glacial drifts of the western Great Lakes region (Martin, Quimby, and Collier 1947: 40–2). This assumption can be attributed to a number of factors: (1) the abundance of copper artifacts in the Old Copper and Middle Woodland cultures which center in or are immediately adjacent to this region; (2) the quantity and availability of the copper; (3) the notion that other deposits were not accessible to pre-Columbian users, or were at least not numerous; and finally, (4) all the copper artifacts so far analysed show compositional similarities to the Great Lakes copper.