Copper trade from Minoa to Michigan - 1500 B.C

One of the most intriguing discoveries from our dim past is the ancient copper mines found both in the Keweenaw area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and on Isle Royale in Lake Superior located fifty miles off Keweenaw's shore.

Archeologists have found over 5,000 ancient copper mines there carbon dated from 3000 to 1100 BC. Along with wagon loads of stone mining tools. Over this period of many centuries, unknown people, presumably Indians, mined over 500,000 tons of the purest copper ever found in the world. Why did they do this mining and where did all of the copper go? Why did they stop mining in 1100 B.C.?

We cannot find this copper among the North American Indian tribes. All of the Indian excavations in North America have found comparably small quantities of copper and have not uncovered any North American civilizations or peoples that relied on large amounts of copper for their needs. We have to look to Central and South America and particularly to the Mediterranean to find enough use of copper that would absorb this amount of copper.

A half-million tons of copper that was removed from Michigan mines in ancient times is missing from America. Only a small fraction of the Michigan metal has been located in native burial mounds and archeological sites, leading to speculation that the metal was shipped overseas.

Thompson, Gunnar. American Discovery

The more this is investigated, the more the evidence indicates that it was shipped to both Europe/Near East, using the St. Lawrence River, and to the civilizations in Meso-(central) America down the Mississippi.

Some historians firmly believe that Europeans found their necessary copper in North America and had established a trade route from Michigan to the Mediterranean by 1700 BC. This would have taken the cooperation of the Indian miners to transport the copper over impassable rapids to Montreal island by canoe, European Northmen to carry it from Montreal to Northern Europe (Ireland?) and Minoan and Phoenician merchantmen to transship it from there to the Eastern Mediterranean where it was in great demand. The ancient Mediterranean copper mines were nearly played out by 1500 BC and the merchants had to go further and further to get the copper and tin they needed to make the much sought for bronze of the age.

Michigan copper had the additional advantage of being the purest copper ore ever found. Its purity was such that it could be cold pounded into many tools without smelting, even though much of it was undoubtedly smelted, both by the Michigan Indians and the Europeans and Asians.

Its quality also meant that the smelting process was much simpler and faster than that of other less pure mine sources. This was of great import to many of the countries of the Near East since they had limited supplies of wood fuel for the smelters.

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This page was last updated on 11/03/97

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