Precontact Native Copper Innovation in British Columbia

Abstract

Copper has figured prominently in discussions of social complexity among Northwest Coast Cultures. Coppers, shield-like sheets of copper variable in size, were a form of lineage wealth displayed, gifted, or ritually destroyed at potlatches; and copper artifacts have been recovered from human burials. The former use of copper is well-documented ethnographically and historically while the latter phenomenon is less well understood. This paper provides an overview of the occurrence of copper in precontact archaeological contexts in British Columbia using published and unpublished literature. Our investigation is framed within a Behavioral Archaeology approach that elicits ideas on copper innovation and all that it entailed. We find that copper is rare in precontact contexts from a province-wide perspective; there was likely more than one instance of native copper innovation; and contrary to previous suggestions, the copper-rich Dene region of south-central Alaska and southwestern Yukon cannot account for most of the precontact examples of copper use in the province. We offer some hypotheses to explain the precontact distribution of copper in BC, including both local invention and diffusion, not in an attempt to deliver the final verdict on this topic, but rather, to stimulate additional research.

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“…This accords well with oral histories of both interior Dene and coastal northern Tlingit that credit Dene ancestors with the innovation of copper mining that then spread copper production to coastal Alaska (Cooper, 2016;de Laguna et al, 1964;McClellan, 1975). As noted by Cooper et al (2020), copper production on the Pacific Northwest Coast greatly predates occurrences in interior Alaska and Yukon. Southern British Columbia was therefore a likely seed of copper innovation that matured in the current study area when conditions afforded mutually beneficial contact and exchange.…”

“…(Figure 12). Copper was noted at a burial at Prince Rupert Harbour dated to 2565 BP (Ames, 2005) and was utilized on the Pacific Northwest Coast through the second millennium BP before a proliferation of use and exchange in the first millennium BP (Cooper, 2012;Cooper et al, 2020). On the Arctic Coast, copper is linked to Pre-Dorset through Late Dorset occupations (Franklin et al, 1981;LeMoine et al, 2003;McCartney, 1988;Rowley and Rowley, 1997).…”