From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The study of tool production and use among Indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures in North America has traditionally focused on lithic analyses; however, there is a growing body of recent research and interest in the procurement, production, and use of metal implements by many of those same groups. Where metallurgical traditions have seen substantial research, they have been primarily studied through a culture history lens, with little attention paid to the procurement and manufacturing practices of metal objects or their subsequent use. Moreover, the decision-making involved throughout those processes deserves more systematic research. This session will focus on all aspects of Indigenous hunter-gatherer metal use, from procurement and practice to ideological and functional interpretive frameworks that place the use of a variety of metals into broader regional and interregional contexts. The diversity of research presented will have broader implications for how we conceptualize hunter-gatherer innovation, technological proficiency, and complex decision-making in the past.