Abstract

Throughout prehistory, many groups of native people in the Western Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley have been familiar with and used native copper. However, the ways in which they procured it, manipulated it, and used it have varied considerably through time. This synthetic study examines continuity, innovation, and variation in the technical processes through which copper workers of the major metalworking traditions of this region, Old Copper, Havana/Hopewell, and Mississippian, converted this raw material into finished products, and the varied roles these products played in their cultural systems. It then extends the comparison into the early Contact period, when copper-based trade metals became available to Central Algonkian-speaking peoples in new forms and under dramatically changing sets of social and economic circumstances. Findings from recent technological analyses of native Illinois metalworking practices and contexts of use are integrated into the synthesis, bringing the long-term trends in indigenous metals use in the midcontinent into even brighter focus.