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On the Source of Copper at the Etowah Site, Georgia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Vernon J. Hurst
Affiliation:
Georgia Geologic Survey, Atlanta, Ga.
Lewis H. Larson Jr.
Affiliation:
Cartersville, Ga.

Extract

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.

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1958

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