Investigating Heritage Old Copper Culture using X-ray Techniques

Lake Superior is home to one of the largest natural copper deposits in the world. Copper remains an important part of heritage and culture for Native Peoples from this region. Raw copper harvested from present-day Michigan was originally worked by hand, through repeated annealing (heating over fire) and mechanical working (forming using stone tools). By recreating these thermal and mechanical processes on copper deposits, we seek to characterize copper specimens from the Old Copper Culture collection based on origin and refinement techniques, as well as answer questions about early technological advances in metals processing such as smelting, using non-destructive x-ray analysis methods.