1000 year old pristine copper spear point from the Yukon

Fantastic stuff this morning,

Yukon archeologist Greg Hare says it was just luck that led him in 2016 to find a nearly 1,000-year-old hunting artifact, half exposed in a remote patch of ice.

Recent radiocarbon dating confirms that the arrow blade point is one of the earliest examples of copper metallurgy ever found in Yukon.

Hare was travelling with a documentary film crew over the ice patches near Carcross, Yukon, in July 2016 when they spotted some caribou on a hillside. Hare had been showing the crew some of sites where he and other archaeologists have been finding ancient First Nations hunting weapons over the last 20 years.

They were flying in two helicopters, and Hare's helicopter decided to land to get out of the film crew's shot. While waiting on the ice patch, Hare and his team spotted an antler arrow point half buried in the ice. It looked like it had just been fired from a bow.

So much archeology is blind luck, and they have been very lucky in the Yukon.

It is a very well crafted point, surely of chinese origin










Lucky find gives archeologists glimpse into early hunting technology in Yukon

I was wondering about that "copper metallurgy" aspect.

Hare says it's made of a copper nugget and is 99.9 percent pure. It would have been locally found, he said.

Native Copper is a natural find, not refined and smelted from ore.

Hammering it into that shape and sharpening it would require more skill than simply napping stone points, though.

a reply to: punkinworks10

So is it a caribou antler that was used for the handle? In the first picture you can't even see the multiple horns but that's a magnificent piece... what perfect condition the spear tip is still in. If only that spear could talk.. I'd love to know what it witnessed!

Chinese, eh?
It certainly is well crafted!

a reply to: punkinworks10

Wow! But how come we are just reading about this, this should have been front pgs yrs ago, great find Pumkinworks.
Chinese?? Hmmmm.

a reply to: FamCore

I think its an arrow point not spear tip, apparently still attached to the shaft in the image in OP.

Edit:

Similar to...

ancient chinese arrowpoints

Well that's ridiculously well preserved. What an extraordinary find. Look at the binding still intact too.

a reply to: Spider879

The Chinese invented practically everything.

originally posted by: intrptr
I was wondering about that "copper metallurgy" aspect.

Hare says it's made of a copper nugget and is 99.9 percent pure. It would have been locally found, he said.

Native Copper is a natural find, not refined and smelted from ore.

Hammering it into that shape would require more skill than simply knapping stone points, though.

I doubt its made from native copper, the blade pattern is not an indigenous shape, and the diamond cross section is a clear clue that the piece is cast. There is no way that piece was hammered out of a nugget using hammer stones.



These examples of Old Copper Culture copper items , show how hammered nativee copper is almost, very nearly always flat, and the impressions of the hammer stones can still be discerned.


The shape of thia point is far to regular and prismatic to be native copper.

Dont forget, there is already a healthy record of chinese copper and bronze items in alaska from this period.

A study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, documents the discovery of a metal bead and a belt buckle that date from between 1100 to 1300—a period of time when the Thule people, ancestors of the modern Inuit, inhabited the region.

This discovery shows that indigenous people in North America were likely interacting with the “Old World” from both sides of the continent, lead author of the study, H. Kory Cooper tells Smithsonian.com. On the east coast they traded with the Norse, while on the west coast they traded across the Bering Strait, he explains.

While the Thule people did occasionally work with native copper and some iron, they did not use alloys or molds. So the presence of these seemingly ordinary objects suggests that they must have come from outside the region and suggest that Alaskan trade with Asia could have begun as early as the 1100s.

Of particular importance was the tiny scrap of leather attached to the buckle, says Cooper. Without it, the team would not have been able to get dates for the artifacts.

And the bronze is not the only item linking the site to Asia. The researchers additionally found obsidian objects at the site that are traceable to the Anadyr River valley in Russia, which drains into the Bering Sea, reports Owen Jarus at Live Science.

Bronze Buckle Shows Ancient Trade Between Eurasia and North America

I

a reply to: punkinworks10

I agree that the point in the OP does not look like any hammered indigenous North American point that I have ever seen before.
It doesn't appear to have a wraparound haft which is more typical.

It's a very harpoon-looking point, what with all the barbs. I know they say caribou but perhaps it was used for some kind of fishing or whaling.

a reply to: butcherguy


My sentiments exactly butcherguy

It's too good.

I smell a hoax.

a reply to: punkinworks10

These examples of Old Copper Culture copper items , show how hammered nativee copper is almost, very nearly always flat, and the impressions of the hammer stones can still be discerned.


The shape of thia point is far to regular and prismatic to be native copper.

Native Copper is a 'find', not smelted. It was fashioned from a "nugget of Native copper". The article was very clear. Edges are easily honed on stones.

From your own link...

Hare says it's made of a copper nugget and is 99.9 percent pure. It would have been locally found, he said.

I saw this the other day too.. the blade shape does seem very refined for what was likely a rarely used skill (working large bits of copper) but they made native copper axeheads in pre columbian north america that were ground, cold worked and heat treated/worked and hardened at the edges iirc. Seenmodern folk repro them with period tools and equipment too. So why not a nice spear?

You know what annoys me is any time we find good examples of humans making things that are very well made it NO WAY they could do that fake or aliens did it . The humans of 20,000 years agaio were smarter then many people on this site .

They had no illusions it was hunt kill and live or fail and die no Walmart no one there to call 911 if they broke a leg .
I assure you even the so called preppers could not hold a candle to these people .

Live or die you better believe they perfected every skill they had every last one or they did not live to 25 years old .
( ps man would I hate to have to hunt with that looks so unbalanced )

a reply to: punkinworks10

Awesome stuff! Thanks for posting.

Without reading anything about it, the shaft is amazing. Normally you would see that on tools used for fishing or hunting aquatic mammals.

However, it would still work well on land animals. It would keep the spear point in where it can do what it does versus simply falling out after penetration. Especially on a less than optimal shot be it spear, arrow, or atlatl.

Real amazing work and well preserved for a 1000 years. It's like the hunter just leaned it up against the rock and walked away.

a reply to: Painterz

You think they just put it there? Still it's a really nice piece. Star and flag.

a reply to: punkinworks10
Are there any pictures which show the actual size of this artifact with a scale? From the images provided I can't tell the size. That would be the determining factor as to whether it is an "arrow point" or a "spear point." From the pictures in the story it looks way too big to be an arrow point.

Recent radiocarbon dating confirms that the arrow blade point is one of the earliest examples of copper metallurgy ever found in Yukon.

I find this statement a bit confusing since metals can't be dated using radiocarbon. Now this could simply be the ignorance of the writer of the article. The shaft may have been dated since it is of organic origin but the copper would require a new technique called the Voltammetric electroanalytical method.

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