Jaredites, Worked All Manner of Tools, Ore, and Weapons

“And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore, they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. And they did have silks, and fine-twined linen; and they did work all manner of cloth, that they might clothe themselves from their nakedness. And they did make all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plow and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash. And they did make all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts. And they did make all manner of weapons of war. And they did work all manner of work of exceedingly curious workmanship. And never could be a people more blessed than were they, and more prospered by the hand of the Lord. And they were in a land that was choice above all lands, for the Lord had spoken it. Ether 10:23-28

“And behold, also, they have brought breastplates, which are large, and they are of brass and of copper, and are perfectly sound. And again, they have brought swords, the hilts thereof have perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust…” Mosiah 8:10-11

“And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war.” Jarom 1:8

SWORDS OF IRON, STEEL & COPPER IN NORTH AMERICA

“…they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper.” (Ether 10:23)

If you are looking for the ores mentioned in the Book of Mormon, they do exist in abundance, and they have been found in North America. Many iron and copper swords HAVE been discovered. When most scientists or archaeologists find an unexplained item in their research, they very often label it a fake, or too good to be true. Since very few experts are looking in North America for iron and steel, it is ignored when they do find it. We will list many pictures and articles about iron and copper swords and other items found in North America in this article.

Artifacts, Bones, Axes, Iron and Forts near Cumorah

25 June 1776–15 Dec. 1846. He was a Miller. Born at Northumberland Co., Pennsylvania. Lived at Livonia, Livingston Co., New York, 1792–1834. Stockholder in Kirtland Safety Society. Served as second counselor in Kirtland elders quorum, 1837. Ordained a high priest, 1844, at Nauvoo, Hancock Co., Illinois.

“From the time Father Bosley* located near Avon [Livingston County, NY], he found and plowed up axes and irons, and had sufficient to make his mill irons, and had always abundance of iron on hand without purchasing. In the towns of Bloomfield, Victor, Manchester, and in the regions round about, there were hills upon the tops of which were entrenchments and fortifications, and in them were human bones, axes, tomahawks, points of arrows, beads and pipes, which were frequently found; and it was a common occurrence in the country to plow up axes, which I have done many times myself. “The hill Cumorah [the Jaredite hill Ramah] is a high hill for that country and had the appearance of a fortification or entrenchment around it. In the State of New York, probably there are hundreds of these fortifications which are now visible, and I have seen them in many other parts of the United States. “Readers of the Book of Mormon will remember that in this very region, according to that sacred record, the final battles were fought between the Nephites and Lamanites. At the hill Cumorah, the Nephites made their last stand prior to their utter extermination, A. D., 385.” – Life of Heber C. Kimball, by Orson F. Whitney, Salt Lake City, UT: Stevens & Wallis, Inc. [1888], 25. Quoted in Annotated Book of Mormon page 492 by David Hocking and Rod Meldrum Page 477 Final battles were not in Mesoamerica. As Joseph Fielding Smith said, “In the face of this evidence coming from the Prophet Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, we cannot say that the Nephites and Lamanites did not possess the territory of the United States and that the Hill Cumorah is in Central America. Neither can we say that the great struggle which resulted in the destruction of the Nephites took place in Central America. If Zelph, a righteous man, was fighting under a great prophet-general in the last battles between the Nephites and Lamanites; if that great prophet-general was known from the Rocky Mountains to “the Hill Cumorah or eastern sea,” then some of those battles, and evidently the final battles did take place within the borders of what is now the United States.” Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation Vol. 3 Ch. 12

Steel Sword in Virginia

“It seems to be a well-established fact that the bodies of nearly all those buried in mounds were partially, if not entirely, consumed by fire, before the mounds were built. This is made to appear by quantities of charcoal being found at the centre and base of the mounds—stones burned and blackened— and marks of fire on the metallic substances buried with them. It is a matter of much regret that on not one of the articles yet found have been discovered any letters, characters, or hieroglyphics, which would point to what nation or age these people belonged. We have been told by an eyewitness that a few years ago, near Blacksburgh, in Virginia, eighty miles from Marietta, there was found about half of a steel bow, which, when entire, would measure five or six feet; the other part was corroded or broken. The father of the man who found it was a blacksmith, and worked up this curious article, we suppose, with as little remorse as he would an old gun-barrel. Mounds are very frequent in that neighborhood, and many curious articles of antiquity have been found there. It is related from good authority that an ornament composed of very pure gold, something similar to those found in Marietta, was discovered a few years since in Ross county, Ohio, near Chillicothe, lying in the palm of a skeleton’s hand, in a small mound. This curiosity, it is stated, is in the museum at Philadelphia.” North America’s Indian Traditions, Archaeology & Book of Mormon II Ohio’s Ancient City edited by Wayne May Reprinted from The Wonders of the World, Boston, Massachusetts: The John Adams Lee Publishing Company, circa 1850.

Nephite Ore in East Tennessee

“I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.” 2 Nephi 5:15 Shortly after the Nephites separated themselves from the Lamanites (establishing the land of Nephi), Nephi states that he “did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords, lest by any means the people who were now called Lamanites should come upon us and destroy us.” Lehi after landing in Florida and prospering there, Nephi and his people fled from Laman and Lemuel. Most likely they traveled north up the Flint river of the Chattahoochee River. We know they traveled “many days”. Travel time by boat up the river to a place near Helen, Georgia would take 7-9 days which would qualify for “many days” as spoken in the Book of Mormon. Once reaching the head of the Chattahoochee River the Nephites could have easily taken the Hiawassee River at its head, north to the Tennessee River right into Chattanooga Tennessee. This is where I propose the City Nephi was located. The necessary ores for Nephites are found in abundance in East Tennessee in the area near Ducktown. The mine there has extracted over 15 million tons of copper ore in modern times. The French Huguenots enjoyed friendly relations with the Mountain Apalachee Indians, who were mining gold, copper and silver near their villages. The gold came from what is now Georgia; the silver from western North Carolina; and the copper from southeast Tennessee. To honor his friendship with these Native Americans, De Laudonniere named the region, “Les Montes Apalachiens.” Moroni’s America page 351In 1799, gold was discovered in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, when Conrad Reed found a 17-pound “glittering stone” in Little Meadow Creek. In 1828 Dahlonega, GA was the site of the first major gold rush in the United States. Ducktown TN was the center of a major copper-mining district from 1847 until 1987. The district also produced iron, sulfur and zinc as by products.

Collection of David Johnson, and the late Dr. E.W. Johnson.

While not professional archeologists, my father and I have collected Old Copper Complex artifacts for more than 35 years and between us have amassed a collection of over 3800 copper artifacts, about 3000 of which have been self-collected, as well as some stone and pottery artifacts (different period) collected from the same area as the Old Copper Complex sites. Our collection includes copper artifacts from Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, New York, Manitoba and Ontario.

When hunting artifacts we log each find as to type, measurements, location and date found, produce a sketch of each artifact and photograph the site.  Our finds come from farm fields, construction sites, river banks, and lake shores, we do not despoil archeological sites with our collecting. We steadfastly refrain from excavating burials although we know of their locations, considering this action by those other than a professional archeologist to be grave robbing. Unfortunately most professional archeologists look upon artifact collectors who use metal detectors with disdain, unworthy of serious recognition and seem to place them in the same category as “pot hunters”. However, I would argue that the artifacts that we, and others, collect would otherwise remain buried and be unavailable for study. We have made our collection available for study and have been visited by archeologists for that purpose. Without artifact collectors like us the true extent of the Old Copper Complex would not be as well defined as it is.

North America’s First Metal Miners & Metal Artisans

Have you ever thought about who the first metal miners and metal workers in North America were? What metal did they mine, where did they mine it, and what did they do with it? In order to find the answers to these intriguing questions we have to look back several thousand years before the birth of Christ.

 

Large deposits of 99%+ pure native copper are known on the Canadian North Shore of Lake Superior, Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, and some minor deposits in Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Reports of these Lake Superior Region copper deposits were heard by the earliest French explorers of the Great Lakes Region, including Samuel de Champlain in 1608. Champlain received a foot long specimen of native copper from an Algonquin Indian chief and sent it to King Henry IV of France. There were no immediate attempts to locate the source of this copper. However, prior to 1800 there were limited attempts to locate the source of the native copper that was spoken of by explorers and indians of the region. These earliest post-european contact attempts to locate and exploit the copper deposits ended in failure.

 

By the mid-1840s, when the first modern copper mines were opened in the Keweenaw Peninsula, miners began to find traces of earlier mining efforts. Throughout the Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royale, pits and trenches dug into the rock were discovered, some as deep as 20 feet and others only a few feet deep. These pits and trenches showed evidence of copper having been removed from the rock, and in some cases copper was found partially worked out of the rock but still in place. In association with these pits and trenches were found literally tons of grooved and ungrooved hammerstones, as well as some finished copper artifacts (knives, spearpoints, spuds, celts, awls, etc.), copper preforms, and unworked cached copper.

 

An interesting point of fact is that these old copper workings were found on every major copper lode discovered on the Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royale by miners in historic times. It was the presence of these old copper workings which led to the discovery of many of the copper deposits that were discovered and mined in historic times.

 

Many theories have been advanced as to who these early copper miners were, some both incredible and unbelievable. These fanciful theories run the gamut from Phoenicians to Berbers to Minoans, Bronze Age Europeans to Vikings, but there is no empirical archeological evidence to support any of these theories. While almost anything is possible, I will wait for the demonstration of empirical evidence before believing any of these unproven theories.

 

Our own Euro-centrist racial bigotry allows some to ignore the obvious, that being that this copper was first discovered, mined and fashioned into tools, weapons and ornaments by the indigenous peoples of the region. Rather than admit that indigenous peoples could have mined native copper and fashioned items for everyday use, some “scholars” would have us believe that the copper was mined and worked by a “virtually unknown race of  people” or Euro-Mediterranean peoples. There is, in fact, unbroken continuity in indigenous peoples, based upon artifact and skeletal evidence, in the Upper Great Lakes Region.

 

There is archeological evidence that indicates prehistoric Native Americans began to populate the area we today call Wisconsin at least 11,500 years ago. The end of the last Ice Age, the Pleistocene Epoch, saw the first human inhabitants arrive in the Western Great Lakes Region. As the glaciers receded vast new terrritories were opened to habitation. These post-Ice Age hunter-gatherer cultures have been named the Archaic Period or Archaic Tradition. In the Great Lakes Region the Archaic Period spanned from about 8000-1000 BC or 10,000-3,000BP (Before Present). [Editors note: Although we can’t totally trust the dating timeline, we would however consider these ancient dates happened in the Jaredite time periods of 2200 BC and even into the Adamic period].

 

One of the lasting effects of the last glacial period on the Great Lakes Region was the scouring of the rock that holds the copper deposits. This glacial scouring action exposed veins of native copper, as well as shearing off innumerable copper pieces of varying sizes, transporting them miles, or even hundreds of miles to the south. This transported copper, found mostly in glacial gravel deposits, is known as “float copper”. It was deposited as the glaciers melted and receded northward. This float copper is found in sizes from that of less than a pea to many tons in weight. I have personally found float copper, with a metal detector, almost 200 miles south of its potential point of original. Float copper was readily available to the indigenous population during the Archaic Period and would have first been found while looking for material from which to manufacture stone implements. Experimentation would have demonstrated that this copper was malleable and could be fashioned into useful shapes. It is only a small step from finding the float copper to eventually finding the exposed copper veins, akin to gold prospectors following placer deposits to their point of origin. We have to realize that the vegetation of the Lake Superior Region was significantly different thousands of years ago than it is in historic times. The amount of  forest overgrowth was considerably less, allowing exposed copper veins to be located more easily.

 

Archaeologists believe that there is some overlap between the Middle Archaic and Late Archaic, especially in the use of copper, and that the copper use which was thought to be characteristic of the Late Archaic actually began in the Middle Archaic and developed over time. The first indigenous peoples who actually mined and utilized the copper were labeled “Old Copper Complex” or “Old Copper Culture” by archeologists. Old Copper Complex, as opposed to Old Copper Culture, is a term used to convey the idea that copper working and usage is a multi-cultural rather than a single-culture phenomenon in North America.

 

There is disagreement among the archeological community as to the time period to ascribe to the Old Copper Complex. Dates range from over 7000 years BP to 3000 years BP. The greatest disagreement seems to be over the beginning age of the Old Copper Complex. Carbon-14 testing of organic materials found with Old Copper Complex artifacts has established a date of at least 6000+ years BP. Carbon testing of wood remains found in sockets of artifacts in our own collection has produced dates as old as 5900+ years BP. Copper continued to be used into proto-historic times, long after the demise of the Old Copper Complex. Many of the copper artifacts from the Old Copper Complex differ from those of later manufacture, with many of the later artifacts being smaller, less utilitarian and more ornamental. Early European traders found native americans using copper tools and weapons wherever copper was available. Many copper artifacts originated in the post-european contact period, native-americans used worn-out and damaged copper pots and other copper trade items to manufacture arrowheads, knives and ornaments. People have always used what was available to them and copper was available for thousands of years.

 

Since I earlier stated that there is no verifiable physical evidence of the Lake Superior copper deposits having been worked by those other than indigenous peoples, what evidence does exist to prove that the indigenous peoples were the ones who worked the copper deposits and manufactured the copper artifacts found today?

 

Some of the first hard evidence came, in May of 1945, when two fishermen found some copper artifacts protruding from the eroding bank of the Mississippi River at an old steamboat landing site known as Osceola Landing, in Grant County, Wisconsin. Following this initial discovery, numerous copper artifacts were removed from the site by local collectors and were subsequently identifed as Old Copper Complex artifacts. Old Copper Complex artifacts include, but are not limited to, varieties of socketed spuds (photo 1), crescents (photos 2,3,4 & 5), celts (photo5), fishhooks and harpoons (photo 6), conical spear and atlatl dart points (photo 6), awls, rat-tail spearpoints (photo 7), knives (photos 3,4,8,9 & 10), socketed spearpoints (photos 11 & 12), and other pieces of undetermined utility, as well as beads and bracelets, none of which had previously been found in situ prior to those at the Osceola Site, all previously reported finds being numerous surface finds or isolated caches in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and central to northern Wisconsin.

Of great importance was the discovery, by professional archeologists, of skeletal remains in association with many copper and chipped stone artifacts. It is estimated that there were approximately 500 burials at the Osceola Site. The major contribution of the Osceola Site was the demonstration of a cultural complex that included Old Copper Complex artifacts. The Osceola Site tied Old Copper Complex artifacts to a distinctive chipped stone industry and burial complex. The fact that cemeteries were found is evidence of long-term attachment to particular places which were returned to again and again, this illustrates long-standing connections between native people and the lands they occupied. Additionally, the inclusion of artifacts with the dead is an indication of belief in an afterlife and the desire to honor the dead with appropriate ceremonies. While not the earliest evidence of burial ceremonies in North America, it is one of the most obvious manifestations. See entire article here:” [email protected]

 

“Earth’s largest and purest copper deposits are found around North America’s Great Lakes. At some point, Native Americans learned to harvest the ore and heat, hammer, and grind it into tools. They left behind thousands of mines and countless copper artifacts, including lethal projectile points, hefty knives and axes, and petite fish hooks and awls. Today, it’s not uncommon to meet residents of the region “who have buckets of copper artifacts [that they’ve found] tucked away in their basements,” says David Pompeani, a geologist at Kansas State University, Manhattan, who studies ancient mining. When researchers began to date the artifacts and mines, they saw a perplexing pattern: The dates suggested the people of the Old Copper Culture began to produce metal tools about 6000 years ago and then, for reasons that weren’t clear, mostly abandoned copper implements about 3000 years ago. After that, early Native Americans used copper mostly for smaller, less utilitarian items associated with adornment, such as beads and bracelets. “The history is just so peculiar,” in part because many other ancient cultures didn’t abandon metal tools once they learned how to make them, Pompeani says.” Ancient Native Americans were among the world’s first coppersmiths, by science.org