Ancient Copper mining in the UP of Michigan and where did it all go?

About 5000 mines have been discovered, in an area that is roughly 200 kilometers long and five to ten kilometers wide. The area mined on Isle Royale measures sixty to eight kilometers. If all mines were placed in one consecutive row, it would measure eight kilometers, eight meters wide and ten meters deep. Every mine that was opened in the past 200 years, showed some previous, prehistoric mining activity. This included mines where the copper ore did not protrude to the surface – showing evidence of the advanced knowledge which allowed the prehistoric miners to identify subterranean ores. Carbon dating of wood timbers in the pits has dated the mining to start about 2450 BC and end abruptly at 1200 BC. Officially, no one knows where the Michigan copper went. All the “ancient copper culture” tools that have been found could have been manufactured from just one of the large boulders. A placard in London’s British Museum Bronze Age axe exhibit says: “from about 2500 BC, the use of copper, formerly limited to parts of Southern Europe, suddenly swept through the rest of the Continent”. No one seems to know where the copper in Europe came from.
    Ancient mine pits, extending from the Porcupine Mountains north along the Keweenaw Peninsula and on Isle Royale have been found over hundreds of years. The extent of the work meant that tens of thousands of people must have been involved over the course of millennia, but they left no structures. No skeletal remains. Just thousands of rocks used for mining and some copper spear points, beads and other trinkets. The reason no bodies were discovered may be because the mines were only worked in the summer months. Again there is rampant speculation as to where they could have camped or originated from with many researchers pointing South to the ancient mound builders city of Aztalan in southern Wisconsin. There have been over 70 burial mounds examined and mining hammers like ones found on Isle Royale have been found. This is a good indication that the miners lived here. Interestingly enough I began this research actually looking at the mysterious underwater pyramids in a lake three miles from Atzalan and somehow got to the ancient copper. The Minoans were a Bronze Age trading civilization who were very good at sea-fairing and trading and back when they were at the height of their power bronze was the metal which all weapons and ship fittings, etc were made from. The chief ingredient for bronze is copper. The era around 3000 BC saw more than 500,000 tons of copper being mined in the Upper Peninsula. The largest mine was on Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior, near the Canadian border. Here, there are thousands of prehistoric copper pits, dug thousands of years ago by ancient peoples unknown. The Minong Belt on Isle Royale has a distance of one and three quarter miles in length and is nearly four hundred feet wide. The copper pits range ten to thirty feet deep with connecting tunnels; one archaeologist estimated that their digging would take the equivalent of 10,000 men working for 1000 years. 
     It is clear that with a vast workforce – possibly as many as 10,000 people – some must have died. It is also likely that at least some laborers came with families. In short, there must have been a number of dead people, but where are the burials? The answer: nowhere. Where the dead were taken is another good question, as there is no evidence of cremation or burial near any of the sites or the Upper Peninsula in general. The only thing that was left behind, were their tools – millions of tools, and this suggests that the workforce, though not necessarily from Europe, was most likely not local either. 
But that it could very well be Europe, was given a boost when in 1922, William A. Ferguson discovered a harbor on the north coast of Isle Royale. Ships could load and unload, aided by a pier that measured 500 meters in length. This suggests that the type of ships that anchored here, were large ships – and that there were many. The most likely explanation as to the purpose of this harbor was that they formed the point where the copper was loaded… to be transported to other regions. The presence of the harbor further shows that the people working the mines were not local, as the local Indians only used small canoes.
   Many researchers, myself included, believe that the ancient Minoans were the ones who at least started the mining. Michigan copper which is the purest natural copper found at 99.5%  has been found in Egyptian tombs and on shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. Some even speculate that the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was built using Michigan

ore brought from the Minoans.

The only piece of “hard evidence” so far uncovered is statue discovered in ca. 1660 by a missionary, Allouez, who travelled through the region and stumbled upon a 30 cm copper statue, depicting a man with a beard – the native Indians did not have beards.

    The Menomonie Indians of north Wisconsin possess a legend that speaks about the ancient mines. They described the mines as being worked by “light skinned men”, who were able to identify the mines by throwing magical stones on the ground, which made the ores that contained copper ring like a bell. 
This practice closely resembles a similar practice that was used in Europe during the Bronze Age. Bronze with a high concentration of tin indeed resonates when a stone is thrown against it. The legend might have confused the start of the process with the result of the process. Even so, S.A. Barnett, the first archaeologist who studied Aztalan, a site near the mines, believed that the miners originated from Europe. His conclusion was largely based on the type of tools that had been used, tools which were not used by the local people.

      The real mystery though is where did the 500,000 tons of copper go?  Only about 1% has been located in North America. If Vikings were in North America during the first millennium I don’t see how a very intelligent seafaring people like the Minoans couldn’t have gotten here as well. They could have established a colony at Aztalan and shipped the ore down lake Michigan to many other various rivers, including the Mississippi. It was claimed that the copper was shipped through Mexico and into South America and I will make the bold claim that it was in fact shipped in large quantities to the Mediterranean area and the Minoan home. The mysterious disappearances of both the miners in the UP and the civilization at Aztalan may be further proof that they were connected. It should also be noted that the Minoan civilization ceased around 1100-1200 BCE, the same time the mining stopped and nearly the same time Aztalan was abandoned. So I end this with who mined 500,000 tons of pure copper from Michigan 6000 years ago and where did it go?

I plan on doing a follow up piece on Aztalan and the Underwater structures very soon.

Thanks for reading and as always………………….PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!