Copper Fishhook

Also called Native Copper Fishhook

Copper FishhookOld Copper Complex: 8,500–3,580 cal B.P. on embedded organic material from copper artifacts including fishhooks (Pompeani et al. 2021), or beginning 7,520–6,180 and ending 4,840–4,190 cal B.P. (Bebber et al. 2022). The Oconto cemetery, Wisconsin, with one copper fishhook among 26 copper pieces, has radiocarbon dates from 7,560 ± 600 to 4,590 ± 400 B.P. (Milwaukee Public Museum).Middle Archaic to Late Archaic

Key facts

Age: Old Copper Complex: 8,500–3,580 cal B.P. on embedded organic material from copper artifacts including fishhooks (Pompeani et al. 2021), or beginning 7,520–6,180 and ending 4,840–4,190 cal B.P. (Bebber et al. 2022). The Oconto cemetery, Wisconsin, with one copper fishhook among 26 copper pieces, has radiocarbon dates from 7,560 ± 600 to 4,590 ± 400 B.P. (Milwaukee Public Museum).
Cultural period: Middle Archaic to Late Archaic
Culture: Old Copper Complex
Material: Native copper from the Lake Superior basin (Milwaukee Public Museum; West 1929).

Description

A copper fishhook is a hook bent from a hammered rod or strip of native copper, with the point drawn out sharp. Most are barbless, with the point angled in toward the shank; shanks are round, square or flat in section. The line was fixed at a notch, groove, flattened or bent-over eye, or split end at the top of the shank (Milwaukee Public Museum; West 1929, 1932).

Makers hammered out a rod, curved it into a hook and drew the end to a point (Milwaukee Public Museum). Traces of sinew or fiber lashing survive on a few shanks (West 1929). Grooved, eyed, split and turned-back shanks are the scarcer kinds among the thousand or more hooks West (1932) examined.

Fishing mattered to Archaic people of the Great Lakes (Milwaukee Public Museum). West (1929) thought the lack of barbs suits set lines, where the fish swallows the bait, and noted that copper and bone harpoons, by contrast, did carry barbs. Caches include 10 hooks from Waupaca County, about 50 from the Black River site in Sheboygan County, and 6 corroded together at New Amsterdam, Wisconsin (West 1929). The key trait is a barbless hook bent from hammered copper rod, with a notched, grooved or eyed shank.

Size

Length 13–152 mm (West 1929, hundreds of Wisconsin hooks, converted from inches); 25–170 mm in the Milwaukee Public Museum collection.

Distribution

Core area: Wisconsin village sites on the Lake Michigan shore and along the Fox and Wolf rivers (West 1929), within the Old Copper area of the western Great Lakes (Milwaukee Public Museum).

Additional information

Look for a hook bent from a single copper rod, with a drawn-out point and a shaped top to the shank. Copper harpoon points are barbed and made to be hafted on a shaft (Milwaukee Public Museum); copper awls and needles are straight, and a needle has an eye. Bone fishhooks follow the same plan in bone; West (1932) notes bone hooks of this pattern at the Baum site, Ohio. West (1929) suggested that short double-pointed copper spindles may have worked as toggle hooks, which would make them fishing gear rather than awls. No opened source dates copper fishhooks to the Woodland period.

Similar types

Types that are easy to confuse with the Copper Fishhook artifact.

Sources

West, George A. 1929. Copper: Its Mining and Use by the Aborigines of the Lake Superior Region. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 10(1):1-184. Milwaukee.archive.org (opens in a new tab)
West, George A. 1932. Exceptional Prehistoric Copper Implements. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 10(4):375-400. Milwaukee.archive.org (opens in a new tab)
Milwaukee Public Museum. n.d. Old Copper Culture: Artifacts; Sites; Distribution. Online Collections Research, Anthropology. Milwaukee.mpm.edu (opens in a new tab)
Pompeani, David P., and others. 2021. On the Timing of the Old Copper Complex in North America. Radiocarbon 63(2):513-531. (Abstract read.)doi.org (opens in a new tab)
Bebber, Michelle R., Briggs Buchanan, and Jacob Holland-Lulewicz. 2022. Refining the Chronology of North America's Copper Using Traditions. PLOS ONE 17(4):e0266908.journals.plos.org (opens in a new tab)

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