Mill Cove Complex Native Copper: A Lead Isotopic Study

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Long-distance movement of copper across North America is often noted by archaeologists but little studied, with its provenance typically assumed to be the Great Lakes region. Such claims need to be tested, and recent studies have approached this problem using laser-ablation instrumentation to assess chemical and lead isotopic variability. Despite the renewed focus on this topic, minimal comparative data still exist, and solution-mode approaches yielding better precision and accuracy have not been explored. This study, therefore, breaks new ground and provides preliminary findings of a solution-mode lead isotopic study of native copper artifacts from the Mill Cove Complex, a St. Johns II (AD 940–1300) civic-ceremonial center in northeastern Florida. These results provide foundational data for future copper provenance research in North America.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Geological and Technological Contributions to the Interpretation of Radiogenic Isotope Data   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40031.0