To return to this sets' summary click Overview. For the general product directory, click Directory. Articles Babylonia Daily Life and Customs Laozi Olmecs Old Copper Complex Other Elements Index Table of Contents If you need help with products and ordering, setting up a new account or working with this website, call or email us: Phone: (800) 221-1592 Email: csr@salempress.com ...the encyclopedia provides extremely useful background information for names and events that students may run across while reading other works. An eye-pleasing and ...a budget-pleasing resource for public, smaller academic, and larger secondary school libraries that otherwise would not invest in works on the ancient world. Booklist   Reference Books Bulletin   Highly recommended for school and public libraries. Lawrence Looks at Books   This set is valuable both for overview essays and quick definitions with understandable, but high school-level language. Articles and even definitions are signed and contain bibliographies for further exploration. Adding the essay topics to the subject online catalog would make this set worth its shelf space. And because so many scholars participated, the set has the authority to recommend it. Reference Reviews   Gale Group   For libraries that serve students who need information on ancient cultures, this work will serve well. American Reference Books   The price will be attractive to libraries that would not otherwise invest in expensive encyclopedias covering these periods and regions. Highly recommended for school and public libraries. Library Journal   The content is timely and well-written, but what makes this set unique, and a must-have for libraries of every sort, are the finding aids. Future reference works of all subjects could use this one as a model... This is the type of resource librarians wish were available on every topic. Reference & User   Services Quarterly

Editor: Thomas J. Sienkewicz, Monmouth College ISBN: 978-0-89356-038-6 List Price: $341 November 2001 · 3 volumes · 1,343 pages · 8"x10" Editor's Choice, Booklist Encyclopedia of the Ancient World Old Copper Complex Date: 4000-1000 b.c.e. Locale: Western Great Lakes, North America Related Civilizations: Archaic tradition, Lake Forest Archaic,     Laurentian Archaic, Shield Archaic, Red Ocher complex, and Glacial     Kame culture Significance This series of Archaic hunter-gatherer cultures produced some of the oldest copper artifacts in North America. The first human inhabitants arrived in the western Great Lakes during the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (last Ice Age) approximately 11,500 years ago. As glaciers receded north, new territories were opened up for habitation. Small groups of extended hunter-gatherer families began to settle into regional territories within this new landscape as early as 6500 b.c.e. Archaeologists refer to these post-Ice Age hunter-gatherer cultures collectively as the Archaic tradition. These cultures made a living by exploiting a wide variety of terrestrial game, migratory waterfowl, fish, and plants. The Archaic tradition lasted from 6500 to 1000 b.c.e. in the Great Lakes. Great Lakes Archaic Indians were the first peoples in North America to experiment with metal fabrication technologies. Nearly pure native copper was discovered in the Lake Superior Basin in vein and nugget forms. Archaic peoples hot- and cold-hammered, ground, and polished the copper to produce a variety of projectile points, woodworking tools, harpoons, fishhooks, and pieces of jewelry. Many of these tools were used in addition to stone and bone tools for everyday subsistence activities; however, some copper goods were traded to cultures outside the region to obtain exotic materials such as marine shell and exotic chert. The term Old Copper complex has been applied by archaeologists to the cultures that manufactured these ancient tools. From radiocarbon-dated materials recovered in close association with these copper artifacts, it is known that the Old Copper complex dates to between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago (4000-1000 b.c.e.). Most of the archaeological evidence has been recovered from mortuary sites and surface finds in Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Ontario. Additional Resources Birmingham, Robert A., Carol I. Mason, and James B. Stoltman, eds. “Wisconsin Archaeology.” The Wisconsin Archaeologist 78, nos. 1/2 (1999). Halsey, John R., ed. Retrieving Michigan’s Buried Past: The Archaeology of the Great Lakes State. Bulletin 64. Bloomfield Hills, Mich.: Cranbrook Institute of Science, 1999. Martin, Susan R. Wonderful Power: The Story of Ancient Copper Working in the Lake Superior Basin. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1999. Martin, Susan R., and Thomas C. Pleger. “The Complex Formerly Known as a Culture: The Taxonomic Puzzle of ‘Old Copper.’” In Taming the Taxonomy: Toward a New Understanding of Great Lakes Archaeology, edited by Ronald F. Williamson and Christopher M. Watts. Toronto: Eastend Books and the Ontario Archaeological Society, 1999. Pleger, Thomas C. “Old Copper and Red Ocher Social Complexity.” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 25, no. 2 (2000): 169-190. See Also Archaic North American culture; Archaic tradition, northern.

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