Towards a Deep History of Southern Appalachian Copper Mining: New Agendas and Approaches

Summary

Copper was an important raw material throughout the prehistory of the Eastern Woodlands of North America. The role of southern Appalachian copper in social, economic, political, and ideological systems across the Eastern Woodlands has received little attention from anthropological archaeologists, particularly compared with copper from more famous procurement zones in the Great Lakes region. In this paper, we present the first steps of a new collaborative research project designed to understand the deep history of southern Appalachian copper extraction, production, and exchange. Building on a synthesis of geological information and historical records of copper mining in the southern Appalachians, this paper presents the context and background that informs research agendas and analytical approaches to the study of the origins and development of copper mining in the region. We argue that a holistic research approach, that considers copper extraction at multiple temporal, spatial, and social scales is necessary to characterize how copper procurement was organized and changed throughout prehistory and to better understand the roles of copper in the lives of communities within and beyond the southern Appalachians.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Developing Approaches in the Study of Prehistoric Copper in North American Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15005