Speaking of copper... I now have Susan Martin's excellent book "Wonderful Power: The Story of Ancient copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin"
Copper can be tested to determine where it was from..... maybe we should check into testing done on prehistoric copper that was claimed to come from the Americas. They have determined, for example, that the copper articles found at Etowah mounds in Georgia didn't come from the Lake Superior region but rather from the Appalachian region.
As far as why hasn't more been found, frankly a lot of ancient NA artifacts are missing. When mounds are excavated by far and away the most common grave item is pottery. If you look at Kolomoki for example [
www.hallofmaat.com] you find lots and lots of (really cool) pottery. But despite a good source for fresh water pearls there aren't many. Why? They used them in jewelry and they did include SOME in the burials. Maybe, some things were more valuable to the living than the dead, the same might be true of the copper.
I'd think a lot of the European settlers would contribute to this. A lot of mounds were dug into and a lot of mounds were completely destroyed. Any Europeans coming into an area would have no more worry about melting down any copper or other metal artifacts they found any more than the Spanish did. The Plymouth pilgrims had no trouble digging into native mounds they found to get corn, beans, and other materials.
Kat
Ma'at Moderator
Founder and Director of The Hall of Ma'at
Contributing author to
Archaeological Fantasies:
How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public
"If you panic, you're lost" -- W. T. 'Watertight' Southard
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2012 11:51AM by Katherine Reece.