We are continuing to pursue the first people in our area from pre-historic time. The history is just now being written. From where did they come? When?

What does copper have to do with Original Americans? ca 4000 BCE.

The history of human development divides into periods or eras. The first, Neolithic, is the beginning of human culture and is the end of the Stone Age. The next, Chalcolithic, is the copper age followed by Bronze, then Iron. These represent the technological development of history.

In the Sumer and Near East areas, copper melting dates to circa 6000 BCE. Copper was well established by 3900 BCE, when the mass diffusion occurred. The diffusion marks the end of the Copper Period.

The Copper Period has received scant attention by many historians and often merges into the Stone Age. However, copper is a major marker for cultural development and the diffusion of peoples. Its appearance around the world near the same time gives a clear indicator of trade, travel, and transactions.

Copper and its tin-alloy called bronze covers the history of humans until near 1200 BCE when another diffusion of people and disruption of cultures occurred. In the Near East, the end is associated with Sea Peoples. No imagination is required to know their pilgrimage.

On the North American continent, the prestigious journal Science.org on 19 March 2021 relates ‘early Native Americans were among the first people in the world to mine metal and fashion it into tools.’ Interestingly, “the pioneering metallurgists abruptly stopped making most copper tools and largely returned to stone and bone implements.”

The story continues. “Earth’s largest and purest copper deposits are found around North America’s Great Lakes. At some point, Native Americans learned to harvest the ore and heat, hammer, and grind it into tools. They left behind thousands of mines and countless copper artifacts, including lethal projectile points, hefty knives and axes, and petite fishhooks and awls. Today, it’s not uncommon to meet residents of the region “who have buckets of copper artifacts [that they’ve found] tucked away in their basements,”’

What does this have to do with our common refrain of very intelligent Original Americans (and the rest of the world,) followed by a sudden regression? Let them tell the story. “…the Old Copper Culture began to produce metal tools about 6000 years ago and then, for reasons that weren’t clear, mostly abandoned copper implements about 3000 years ago.”

At least one geologist opines the dates were somewhat earlier, making the North American metallurgists the oldest on earth. A Wisconsin copper projectile point dates reliably to 8500 BCE.

Using the Old Copper Culture dates, the era matches precisely the settlement of Watson Brake and the demise corresponds to the end of the neighboring Poverty Point culture. The sites’ archaeologists surmise the culture suddenly appeared from unknown sources and suddenly disappeared. Coincidence? Coincidences are not.

What is going on?

The copper trade was extensive east of the Mississippi, with other mines also in the Appalachians.

Petroglyphs around the mining area indicate a world trade, over thousands of years with different cultures. American and European scholars have analyzed and largely agree on some of the meanings. Corresponding glyphs apparently exist down the Mississippi and up the Arkansas and Cimarron River no near Colorado. Since glyphs are known only to the artist, interpretation sometimes becomes convoluted.

The observed regression of culture is the time when traditional history attributes that the Native Americans were evolving from labelled “ignorant savages,” giving little account of prior history and the interaction of world events.

Was this a concerted effort to denigrate an entire people and culture, to push an alternative account of development, or simply poor scholarship? Whether a conscious effort, the effect that history is predominantly oblivious to pre-1000 BCE North America has the jaded effect of rewriting reality.

The Columbus narrative of a Euro-centric development of the western Hemisphere still dominates, despite decades of research to the contrary. The Admiral of the Seas fostered a noble effort, since the following spread of humanity was a consequence of his innovative exploration. The next half-millennia is barely getting humans back to their prior abilities.

Fortunately, as noted by the recent Science article among others, geologists and historians with new data are adopting the validated ancient occupation by intelligent people view of human culture. Their data, analysis, and hypotheses puts-to-rest earlier dogma. Unfortunately, some academic anthropologists and archaeologists are dragging their feet for career reasons.

We are not dogmatic on dates. As technology develops comparative events of the same dates tend to stay together. However, relative dates between eras seem tending to compress time. Dates earlier than 5730 BP have more questions. Is that because the half-life of the gold-standard Carbon-14 is about that long +/- 40 years? Is it because the ancient Egyptian / Hebrew methodology dates recorded history to 5782 BP. Are those two related?

Think about, what world event circa 3900 BCE caused the diffusion of people around the world? What world event circa 1200 BCE caused the disruption of society back to the Stone Age? Do ancient stories carry the kernel of reality? Are so-called ancient “myths” really history that does not match a prescribed narrative?