PRE-COLUMBIAN COPPEK-MTNING IN NOKTH AMERKJA. 



Bv Iv. Ta Packard. 



The bioiul classification <»f the successive stages of culture of the 

 prehistoric; peoples of Europe into the stoue, bronze, and iron "ages" 

 was based ujjon ])rehistorie finds, and is an induction derived from 

 observation similar to that relating to the succession <»f the different 

 orders of animals and plants in geological history. It is also confirmed, 

 as far as bronze and iron are concerned, by ancient tradition, for iu 

 early histoiical times it was known among the Greeks that bronze had 

 preceded iron at an earlier period, and this knowledge, passing to the 

 Romans in a later age, was expressed in the line of Lucretius which has 

 been often quoted iu this connection, " sed irrior <rris crat quam ferri 

 cognitus nsns.'''' 



But there is e\'idence to show that the use of coi^per was indei)endent 

 of, if it did not precede, that of bronze, particularly in places where 

 tlie metal was indigenous. This evidence consists in the discovery of 

 copper implements and weapons instead of or sometimes accompany- 

 ing bronze, mingled with numerous stone articles of the same charac- 

 ter, in various places in Europe and the East. The prehistoric people 

 had learned the art of extracting copper fi-om its ore, and in some cases 

 l)racticed it near the places where the metal was used for implements 

 and weapons. Prehistoric copper mines have been reported from the 

 Urals and elsewhere, and a circumstantial account of such a mine, 

 which Mas discovered in 1827 near Bischofshofen in Salzburg, in Ger- 

 many, has been published by M. Much, an arch<e(»logist who examined 

 it in LS79.* The traces of the old workings, nearly obliterated after so 

 long a time, had led to the establishment of a nourishing mod<H'n cop- 

 per mine on the same vein. Just as the trenches on the outcrops of the 

 coi)i)er bearing rocks in the Lake Su])erior district served as guides to 

 modern miners in sinking shafts there. The Salzburg mine, however, 

 was in copjx'r ore and not native coj)per, and was a mine in the proper 

 sense of the term, with extensive underground workings. The remains 

 of small smelting furnaces, with slag heaps and other rubbish, were 



* Die Knpfcrzcit iu Kiiropji luul ilir Yerhaltui.ss zur Cnltur d<v ludoijcorrnanou. 

 Wien, ISSG. 



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