The Acquisition of Copper Alloy by Native Americans in late 16th- and early 17th-Century Virginia

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

When English colonists settled at Jamestowne in 1607, Virginia Indians of the lower Chesapeake Bay considered copper objects to be valuable trade goods. The leaders of the Powhatan Chiefdom initially saw the English settlers at Jamestowne as a valuable source of trade copper. Scholars have hypothesized that James Fort was a primary distribution point for the European copper artifacts that are found at Virginia Indian sites further inland. LA-ICP-MS analysis of copper artifacts from domestic sites in central and western Virginia determined that some of these artifacts were compositionally similar to the European smelted copper found at James Fort. However, the analysis also revealed that a number of copper artifacts were compositionally similar to European copper alloy found at the Berry Site, a 16th-century Spanish frontier fort in North Carolina. This suggests that interior Virginia Indian communities participated in multiple interaction spheres during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow