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this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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Also the Old Copper Culture of the Great Lakes area! The area has a lot of natural workable copper deposits that are pure enough to be shaped with campfire level heat and stone, not requiring the intensive smelting techniques that were required for metalworking in much of the rest of the metalworking world.
NORTH 02 on YouTube has some great videos about the metallurgy of the pre-Columbian Americas; I literally just watched the one on the Old Copper Culture today, and have his video on the larger metallurgical traditions of the Americas saved to watch.
The Old Copper Culture: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L0E0ueRnBLw
The Lost Metallurgy of the Ancient Americas: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tfwjM4e42cE
They're really gorgeous too, some incredible artwork from the culture!
But I think non-bronze copper is not all that practical for tools?
Speaking only of that which I learned from the video I linked, my understanding is that cold-hammered copper actually hardens a fair amount. There's a demo using an axe with a cold hammered replica copper blade where he cuts down a tree, for example, and some tests using copper tipped spears. Also, cold hammered copper fishing hooks, which had advantages over bone fishing hooks inreparability and flexibility and would have been useful for fishing in the Great Lakes area. There are still tradeoffs, though, and stone tools were still in widespread use for things they were better for, but there was still a lot of utility in cold hammered copper.