Metal mining in America began long before the advent of the gold rush era or before the first explorers arrived to claim and colonize this new frontier. It wasn’t until the advent of carbon dating that anyone realized how long mining had been going on in the United States. The path of discovery of ancient copper mining in America goes back to the first explorers.
When Columbus arrived in the new world, he informed his homeland that the natives possessed impressive copper weapons. Other early explorers of the Americas also made copper notes in the possession of the natives of the island and the mainland. In 1536, Jacques Cartier received pure copper nuggets from Indians in the St. Lawrence River area. The list of explorers who noticed copper among the natives continues. Because the native Indians considered copper to be sacred, it took explorers a while to figure out where the copper came from.
By 1800 there was enough evidence of massive amounts of a very pure grade of copper in the Keweenaw Peninsula (which is Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) that Congress passed a resolution to study copper. In 1820 it was confirmed that the Keweenaw Peninsula contained decent amounts of very pure copper. If the area had not already been in Indian possession, the first metal rush in America would have been for copper. The Georgia Gold Rush of the late 1820s preceded the Copper Rush by that fact alone. By 1843, the peninsula became part of the American territories and the copper rush was underway.
In 1848, Samuel O. Knapp, an agent for a company that would eventually become the Minnesota Mining Company, was looking down a snow-covered hillside and noticed a line of indentations in the snow. He followed these down a path until he came to a cave like entrance. Exploring the interior, he discovered that the “cave” was actually a man-made hole and that there were remains of tools inside. After explorations were made in other wells, it was discovered that there were masses and veins of copper within the wells. It wasn’t long before it became the way to mine these pits whenever they are found. Many tools were discovered. Much archaeological information was destroyed.
Carbon dating studies of tools found in the copper pit areas began in 1955 and the findings resulted in a large survey of the pits and surrounding soil. The pits date back approximately 4,000 years at most. Due to the purity of the copper and a unique occurrence of silver with copper, metal artifacts from this area can be easily traced to North and Central America and neighboring islands. It is clear that copper mining had established itself as a trade. What is not known is who these ancient miners might have been.
Miners are known to have arrived in the area shortly after the receding glaciers, at a time when copper could have been collected from the ground surface, the land still devoid of forestry making this an easy task. . The waterways were also at a higher level which made travel easier. As the copper float became scarce, excavation would have been necessary. It is estimated from the thousands of pits found on the Keweenaw Peninsula, and hundreds more on Isle Royale, that these early people mined at least 500 million pounds of copper.
An effort of this size would require a lot of human resources, boats, accommodation, food supplies, etc. Temporary camps would have been established, if not entire villages. However, no trace of these people has been found apart from the digging tools and one or two personal effects. There is no evidence of housing, transportation, food gathering, or agriculture. It is believed that due to the harsh winters in the region, the miners came and went seasonally, but it is unknown from where. One expert has compelling evidence that these people may have been here 7,000 years ago and that they came from Egypt. Other possibilities are that they came from Russia, from the north. Others suggest that they may have been Aztec or another Central American culture. Near St. Louis, archaeologists are uncovering the ruins of a fairly advanced civilization from about 6,500 years ago and it is thought that these may be the lost miners, but not much is known about this culture yet.
While conjecture and debate continue, all experts seem to agree that the miners were not the ancestors of the native Indians. The Indians had no knowledge or legends of these people and the craft of the tools found points to a much more advanced culture than the Indian cultures. The only thing we can know for sure is that these people were here, were here at the time man first began to use copper, and that artifacts made from the copper they mined can be found in the ruins of many ancient cultures.
Perhaps these early miners left no trace other than the tools they left behind in their mining shafts. Perhaps important evidence was destroyed early in the American Copper Rush. Hopefully, some clues still remain hidden and have yet to be discovered by some lucky archaeologist or treasure hunter. Whatever answers are found, they are sure to be intriguing.