Have you heard of the Michigan Mining Mystery? Last night on The History Channel H2 series, America Unearthed, Scott Wolter investigates the Great Lakes copper heist. Between one to 1.5 Billion pounds of copper are estimated to be missing and unaccounted for from copper mines about Lake Superior. Unless, you assume as Wolter does, that the copper may have been mined by the ancient Minoans and supplied the Bronze Age. The mystery begins in 1896 in Michigan′s Upper Peninsula when the Newberry Tablet is discovered by two miners. A stone tablet buried and wrapped in the roots of a tree bears markings that appear to be Minoan symbols. An interesting find since scientists did not rediscover the Minoan civilization until 1900.
Now, before you turn green like oxidized copper, consider this. On Wednesday night, the Detroit Public TV station, WTVS, aired a documentary, America′s Ancient Industry, which also examines the mystery of the Michigan copper mines. It turns out that there were some 10,000 prehistoric copper mines found along the shores of Lake Superior. The lake itself, in ancient times, was much larger periodically, as much as 20% more area. Also, about 3,500 years ago, there was a river that cut through what is now Wisconsin that was a branch of the Mississippi. So, one could sail a boat from the Gulf of Mexico straight up to Lake Superior. At other times, when the lake levels were lower, there had been a land bridge between the Lower Peninsula and Canada, making a journey from the east along the St. Lawrence River possible. This documentary, while focusing mainly on the domestic copper trade among various native tribes, also raises the question of not only the Minoans, but other peoples from Europe, Africa and Asia visiting Michigan to obtain copper.
Scott Wolter begins his exploration on Isle Royale, a large island and now National Park in the northwestern corner of Lake Superior. He gets a tour of some ancient copper mining pits. There are many and some are quite deep. In fact, they may be responsible for the declining wolf population, which was down to just nine wolves on the entire island. Several wolves, as well as moose, have been found dead after falling into some of these ancient mining pits. But since the island is a national park, Wolter is not allowed to take any copper samples.
Next stop is the city of Marquette in Michigan′s Upper Peninsula. Here, Wolter eyeballs the world′s largest example of ′float copper′, raw, virtually pure ore which was relocated to the area by the plowing action of glaciers as they advanced southward during the Ice Age. The rock is some 28 tons in weight. He then visits a small museum in St. Ignatius at the northern tip of Michigan′s Lower Peninsula. Wolter learns from Judy Johnson that there are still some remains of the Newberry Tablet, which he inspects. He finds several Minoan symbols on the tablet which match a photograph taken when the stone was first discovered. She also directs Scott to a rock store where he can buy samples of copper ore.
Judy also tells Wolter about the famous Copper Harbor petroglyph of a square-sailed ship. The kind generally used by the Minoans, as well as many other ancient mariners. Native legends do tell about ′fair-haired′ people visiting in ancient times. One last stop for Wolter is in Wisconsin where he meets with a local treasure hunter who claims to have found Minoan symbols on the bottom of a lake. They dive and check them out, but Wolter is not convinced as to how authentic they are. These turn out to be merely piles of rocks shaped like Minoan symbols.
Back at his laboratory, Scott Wolter tests the copper ore sample he obtained in Michigan and compared it with another sample that was discovered in a Minoan vessel. The results show a match! The purity of the copper, as well as the examples of trace elements, indicates that the Minoans may indeed have obtained copper from Michigan some 3,500 years ago. So the Great Lakes Copper Heist may have been solved on The History Channel H2 series, America Unearthed.
January 5th, 2013 at 9:44 am
The unearthed series needs to get serious about updating american history text books. The current obscurity of the US history before 1500 is not acceptable.
His last show about the Staffordshire man from 1150ad buried in AZ needs to put together a web site with stats and facts.
Queen Elizabeth’s response to Spanish Queen Isabella’s Columbus “discovery” was — so? the Welsh discovered America in the 1100s ! One UNPUBLISHED fact is that the Welsh returned in 1609 at the Jamestown settlement (11 years before the pilgrims), funded by a Virginia Charter of the King, their distant cousin. And it was the SAME family — I know because they were my ancestors and I’ve traced the family genealogy (verified by Oxford). We didn’t discover, we just returned 400 years later.
Guess what — Staffordshire is just a few miles directly east from the Welsh area that the 1100’s explorers are legend to have departed from — it’s very likely the Staffordshire man in AZ could have joined the envoy to America (that never returned). And, the Welsh princes to the east married the daughters and granddaughters of the Kings of England.
in 2012 I returned to the castles my Welsh ancestors left in 1609 — about 400 years ago — and was the first person recorded from our Virginia-US family to have done so, logging the visit in every church record I could make there.
Yes – Columbus was in NO WAY the first european to discover the lands of the USA. He used maps that were several hundred years old….
January 6th, 2013 at 8:34 am
While we all agree that Columbus was not the first to ‘discover’ the New World, it was his actions that led to shopping malls today. That is the fundamental difference between what the Vikings or Minoans did and what Columbus achieved.
January 6th, 2013 at 10:07 pm
Columbus brought the new world to the attention of civilized society, so he discovered it for all practical purposes just as we don’t give penguins credit for discovering Antarctica. It is ignorant to claim something else.
True some idiot 1000 years ago might have drifted on a wooden raft accidentally across the ocean because he was an incompetent fisherman. Prolly happened 100 times, but what does it really matter?
January 14th, 2013 at 10:25 pm
A couple thing that they never address in these theories though. Perhaps these sailors did have the means to make the transatlantic voyage to get the copper and the need for it.
But how did they discover it in the first place? You don’t just randomly come across an underground mineral source on the other side of the world.
Also, one thing that the America Unearthed episode left very absent was the copper that he was comparing his Michigan sample to. He noted that it was from a rare Minoan shipwreck, but no other details were given.
Michigan’s Ancient Copper Culture: An Essay on Speculative History
January 15th, 2013 at 6:16 am
Points well made, Benjamin. I would certainly like to know more about the source of the known sample of Minoan copper used in the comparison.
I do disagree with you about the whole ‘random’ thing. For starters, we really do not have any clear idea as to what the time frame is for all of this sailing, exploring and mining. Was it over a period of 50 years? A century or two? 500 years?
If you just look at the random way that Columbus and later explorers went about the globe, we see that it was VERY random! We also saw that once the Europeans knew there were riches to be had, they made a serious effort to grab all they could.
Another point concerning the lack of evidence of any pre-Columbian settlements is that a good deal of whatever there might have been is long gone. However, recent DNA research has shown that some Native American tribes, such as the Cherokee, have a lot of DNA markers unique to Europeans. Raising the possibility that they emigrated to the New World several thousand years ago. Were they Minoans? Egyptians? Atlanteans?
January 16th, 2013 at 9:55 am
Patrick, Columbus was no more competent in his mission. He wasn’t looking for America. He was looking for Asia. But this land mass kept getting in the way of his and expeditions that followed. BTW, native Americans needed no help in building civilizations. Teotihuacán, near Mexico City, was described by Cortes as “an amazing city of fertile gardens, canals, and massive temples, more beautiful than any European city.” One wonders what the Americas would be like if it were allowed to advance without European involvement in that era.
January 17th, 2013 at 7:44 am
I DVR the episode, very interesting.
I am a Michigan native; I just do not understand how the Minoans could move 1 to 1.5 Billion tons of raw copper via Great Lakes, overland America, plus across oceans back to the Mediterranean.
I think the host of the TV show said it would have taken 10,000 people a Thousand Years to mine the 10,000-15,000 Copper Mines on Isle Royal in the middle of Lake Superior.
That is a major people movement and/or enslavement of native population to accomplish this.
I have been to the Upper Peninsula and Isle Royal, very difficult to access, very harsh winter climate. 6-months out of the year, very difficult place to live. I wish the show would have explained how this is possible for 10,000 population to be maintained on this island?
January 20th, 2013 at 6:42 am
Many Euro-Americans underestimate the abilities of the Pre-Columbian Indigenous people of these Americas. When you go to another neighborhood across town and find a beautiful garden do you assume it was there by accident? You would if you were conceded and didn’t want to acknowledge their ability to produce such a garden. Native-Americans, I believe, occupied this side of the world probably as long as the people did the other side. But why was the New World a paradise when it was discovered by the others? Hunters/Gatherers? You insult their Intelligence!