Developing Approaches in the Study of Prehistoric Copper in North American Archaeology

From studies at the turn of the Twentieth Century using assay techniques demonstrating that copper was of New World origins rather than Old, to typological studies and metallurgical studies in the mid to late Twentieth Century, to the sophisticated elemental analyses of the early Twenty-first, analysis of prehistoric copper materials has been an active area of research throughout the development of American Archaeology. Unlike the rich theoretical and methodological approaches used in other material analyses involving lithics and ceramics, copper analysis trends toward the idiosyncratic, the under problematized, and the under theorized. Yet research involving prehistoric copper has recently experienced a notable growth, and from this growth there have emerged new approaches, questions, and social issues that may be addressed using copper. Among these remain the traditional provenance studies, but research has expanded or is expanding into social processes, dynamic interactions between communities, studies of ritual economies, issues of copper technological organization and production, and others. This session highlights this growing body of research and methodologies and begins to explore the range of methods, problems, and theory that may support the future development of copper studies in North American archaeology.