The Old Copper Culture: North America’s Forgotten Copper Age (ca. 8000-1000 B.C.E.) – [4096×2280]

This is the Version 4 map (shown in a way not usually presented) of North America's Old Copper Culture, alternatively known as the Old Copper Industry, Old Copper Complex, or "OCC" for short. It was a group of metalworking and metal-using cultures living around the Great Lakes and parts of New England. As of 2025, evidence from the OCC and its eastern neighbors (the Laurentian Tradition and the Maritime Archaic) suggests a Pacific Northwest-style culture, with ocean-going canoes, possibly sailboats, seasonal and year-round camps and settlements. Initial mining emissions appear around 8000 B.C.E., but the most intensive work happened between 4500-3500 B.C.E., based on available evidence. Their toolkit suggests a rich hunting, woodworking, and fishing-oriented culture.

I had an email exchange with David Pompeani, the lead geologist and investigator who drilled lake sediments to find mining emissions, not too long ago, and he's said there are no near-future plans to study more lake core sediments to refine the Copper mining timeliness (which could push it back even further, or bring it closer to the present – many tools have been dated and found in burials after 3500 B.C.E.). He's expressed interest in cooperating in the future, especially using artifact data for future lake sediment surveys.
Others and I have collected a lot of data relating to these cultures, so if you'd like to see more, let me know.