My Work

My research focuses on Archaic Copper Production in the Northern Lake Superior Basin. I have a series of projects that I am working on that all deal with this topic.

Native Copper Production

North America’s Native Copper Industry is one of the oldest metalworking traditions in the world, with metal use in this region dating to over 9,500 years ago. While several studies have focused on copper mining and use, few have focused on copper production. As a result, little attention has been given to the waste materials generated during the production process. The study of waste materials is vital to understanding what metallurgical production systems look like and how they are structured. This project examines the geospatial organization of copper production throughout the Archaic period in the northern Lake Superior Basin. The organization of copper production is examined through morphological analysis of copper waste materials from copper production sites across this region. This information will then be examined geospatially using the Optimized Hot Spot Analysis tool on ArcGIS to identify where stages of production took place as people and copper moved across the landscape. The structure of this production system will then be interpreted through a relational approach to production that seeks to understand the relationships that form between people, material culture, and the environment through assembling in the production process.

Lead Isotope Analysis

This project is a pilot study for using lead isotope analysis to source native copper in the Lake Superior Basin. Forty Pb isotope samples are sampled from native copper deposits across the Lake Superior Basin and analyzed via MC-ICP-MS at Indiana University’s Metal Isotope Lab. The result of this analysis demonstrates that there is a significant overlap between Pb signatures of native copper sources within the Lake Superior Basin. As a result, lead isotope analysis is not recommended as an alternative for sourcing native copper within the Lake Superior Basin.

Maritime Least Cost Path

This study is focused on the use of maritime least cost path (MLCP) analysis to model highly probable travel corridors in the upper Great Lakes region of North America. This article presents the initial findings of this modeling methodology, indicating that MLCP can provide a new and insightful way to model movement of precontact peoples in the Great Lakes. Using MLCP analysis, this project identifies highly probable travel areas for people moving away from Isle Royale during the Nipissing high paleolake level.

Nipissing Relict Shorlines

Since the end of the last major glaciation over 10,000 years ago, lake levels in the Lake Superior Basin have varied considerably. This variation caused the formation of relict shorelines that were left behind as water levels dropped. At around 6,600 years ago, the lake level began to rise in an event that took place over the next 700 years. This event marks the beginning of the Nipissing phase which varied over the next two thousand years, reaching its peak between 4,500 and 5,000 years ago. The tight geochronological component of these relict shorelines provides a unique opportunity to target and date archaeological sites found along their shorelines. This project works to reconstruct the Nipissing relict shoreline in the Thunder Bay region of Ontario, Canada by mapping strandlines and elevation estimates for the Nipissing relict shoreline. The results of this mapping are then compared to the locations of suspected Archaic sites in the region to identify if these sites correlate to the Nipissing relict shoreline.