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ly called the Old Copper Complex, unique to the western Great Lakes <br />Eastern Archaic stemmed projectile <br />points found at the Canning Site, a <br />region of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, and parts of <br />bison -processing camp in Norman Coun- <br />Manitoba and Ontario. Accidental finds of isolated copper implements <br />ty, Photo courtesy of Michael Mchlovic, <br />are common throughout Minnesota, but their greatest concentration <br />Moorhead State University. <br />is in Wisconsin where a number of Old Copper human burial sites <br />have been excavated. Perhaps beginning as early as 5000B.c., the Old <br />Copper Complex persisted until nearly 1000 s.c., and it provides the <br />earliest evidence of the use of metals for tools in the New World, Cop- <br />per was not sufficiently plentiful, however, to answer all of the needs <br />of these Eastern Archaic peoples, who also continued to make and use <br />stone tools, Copper continued to be used In the succeeding Middle <br />and Late Prehistoric periods, but primarily as ornaments, and the <br />distinctive, large, utilitarian copper tools of the Eastern Archaic <br />disappear. Large -socketed and rattail -tonged spear points, small cone- . <br />shaped points, knives, fish gorges, and awls were made by hammer- <br />ing raw native copper into the desired shape. Copper -tool manufac- <br />ture in this period was not a true metallurgical process, but it involved <br />pounding and annealing nearly pure nuggets. This process necessitat- t <br />ed locating pure raw copper that needed no smelting and refining, <br />Such sources have long been known in the Upper Michigan peninsu- <br />la, on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, and In glacial deposits where cop- <br />per nuggets sometimes occur in the gravels transported by the glaciers <br />from regions farther north, A Mihnesota source appears to lie in the <br />basalt outcrops near the Upper St. Croix River. <br />The first Old Copper habitation site to be excavated in Minnesota <br />was worked by Peter Bleed in 1966. Known as Petaga Point, it is locat- <br />ed on what is now the picnic ground In Mille Lacs-Kalhio State Park, <br />- The site was investigated -before parkdevelopment took -place, _ and_______ <br />Bleed's final report on its archaeology was published by the Minnesota <br />Historical Society. The earliest evidences of human activity at Petaga <br />Point belong to the Old Copper Culture. Tools excavated there appear <br />Eastern Archaic Tradition 13 <br />