Expert: Ralph Salier - 1/10/2004

Question
I would like to know if bronze age Europeans were mining America hundreds of years before the voyage of Columbus.  I wonder about this because 16th and 17th century European explorers seemed to find only stone age people in America.  Did Coronado or Joliet or others record finding a metal working culture?  I do not remember reading of this.  Has evidence been found of an old freight road from a copper mine to the Mississippi or St. Lawrence river?

Answer
The first Europeans to come to north america were the Vikings a few hundred years before Columbus.  But they did not stay long nor did they mine in NA.  However, the Native Americans did find naturally occuring copper nuggets in the Kewanaw Peninusla of Michigan and elsewhere and these were worked into various implements and jewlery items including gorgets, ear spools and decorative bagles.  However, this was not bronze and they did not have a casting technology.  The use of copper found its heyday during the Middle Woodland period and in the Hopewell culture.  However, the Mississippian peoples of the culture by the same name also used naturally found copper and had extensive trading (rivaling that of the Hopewellians) and many copper artifacts are found in their burials too.

When Europeans arrived, the Native populations were already beginning to show signs of weakness brought on by deseases brought to the continent by the Vikings and other explorers.  These deseases like small pox, measels, chickenpox and others wiped the Native Americans out and damaged their cultural integrity.  

The early explorers only spoke of gold working in Mexico and South America but not of copper in North America because it was not considered of value.