Recognizing Copper Tool Assemblages at Middle Woodland Havana Habitation Sites: Observations on Raw Material Sources, Assemblage Content, and Tool Fabrication

Abstract

During the Hopewell era, no material was so widely spread or employed across the midcontinent as copper. Large deposits of copper artifacts in the Ohio Scioto Hopewell mounds, in what are usually deemed as status and ritual contexts, have colored subsequent interpretations of copper utilization during this period. Subsequent research documented copper's distribution across the midcontinent in Hopewell mortuary practices, while focusing on its significance as a distant import from the western Great Lakes. Until regional Illinois habitation copper-use studies were undertaken, in the 1980s and 1990s, mortuary copper dominated discussions of Havana Tradition Hopewell connections. However, examinations of avocational collections and metal-detecting surveys of 82 Havana habitation sites have yielded an array of copper tools and scrap revealing the presence of an extensive copper-working industry. It has become clear that regional Havana Tradition people were involved in the active production of utilitarian copper tools and ornaments, suggesting that the industry was based on local drift copper deposits. This harkens back to earlier regional patterns of copper tool production, while emphasizing the exotic character of the few copper mortuary inclusions—such as ear spools, headplates and breastplates, panpipes, and so forth—thus suggesting two very different systems of copper valuation.