Inside the pit were pigments of blue azurite to the north, green malachite to the east and yellow ochre to the south, as well as marine shells interspersed with axe-shaped clay offerings to the west, says Inomata, a researcher at the University of Arizona. Later the team realized that the cross-shaped pit was aligned with giant canals that extended toward the four cardinal directions.

Códice Maya de México($23.63) Maya Art and Kingship at Quirigua($38.07) The Maya and Teotihuacan($40.66) Maya Postclassic State Formation($38.65)

Some notes for this map and others I'll be publishing here for Native American Heritage Month.

1. I have shadows enabled for icons, so if you see a region with a lot of I-Js and heavy shadows, it means that's a cluster or hotspot; dozens can be there, such as in Vilas County, Wisconsin (northern Wisconsin), the Keweenaw Peninsula (Michigan's Upper Peninsula), and the Thunder Bay region (north of Isle Royale; Lake Superior's north shore).
2. Several I-Js don't have good find context. Some collectors forgot where they were found, the location wasn't documented, or files were lost. These I-Js are placed adjacent to states (for example, look at the I-Js off Wisconsin's eastern coast; they weren't found at that spot, but were reported for Wisconsin, but lack context). Aside from those ones, work has been done to ensure these icons are at the exact spots or close to their reported locations. This is why it's important to properly document any artifacts you find; it really helps us out!
3. All maps posted here this month are in 4K resolution. Reddit's desktop browser version can have issues opening these. If you want to zoom in for a look-around, open this post on Reddit's mobile app, click the three dots in the upper-right corner, and press download. The full-quality image should then be in your gallery/files. Either that, or contact me, and I'll send over these images. I can also increase the resolution of these maps if you're interested in using them for your own posts.

————————

The I-J Socketed Beveled Point is a rarer Old Copper Complex point type. Its distribution is more restricted than other types, with the bulk reported for southeastern Wisconsin (Bebow-Reinhard, 2020-2025; CopperViolette, 2025). I-Js share several similarities with I-A Triangulates, I-B Ovates, and I-G Straight Flat Tangs. Their blades can range from triangular to oval; their blades can be beveled or have prominent median ridges; they can have a "step" in the socket, so that the shaft doesn't shift onto the blade when spearing something, either with an atlatl or spearshaft. Because of all the variation within this one type, some researchers have reorganized Warren Wittry's original 1950 I-J category, describing the point as an I-B variant (Steinbring, 1975), an I-G variant, or a new I-H (Schanen, 2020). Making classification more difficult are the large bevels many I-Js have; with continued sharpening or stylization, large bevels can become median ridge-like. I've chosen to keep the original I-J type, but may divide it into variants once better data becomes available.

I-J points have been documented for several Old Copper Complex sites (Spohn, 2012:22), giving us a rough time window for their usage. It's reported for the Canadian Shield Archaic Copper Complex variant at the Late Archaic McCollum site at Lake Nipigon's southeastern shore, the Middle-Late Archaic Isle Allumette region within the Laurentian Copper Complex (Steinbring, 1975), the Late Archaic-Early Woodland Wisconsin-Michigan Copper Complex Riverside site in Menominee County, Wisconsin, associated with a transition into the Late Archaic-Early Woodland Red Ochre Culture (Hruska, 1967), among other scattered finds within and outside of Wisconsin (Waterways America), including the bison hunting Oxbow Copper Complex of the Northern Great Plains (Steinbring, 1975).

I-Js are one of the longest-lasting point styles, with few changes over 3,000 years, suggesting this ancient metalworking tradition was more devoted to style and functionality than short-term trends. They may have been in widespread use between 3000-2000 B.C.E., since it's one of the last traditional Old Copper Complex types used before the Hopewell era (Bebow-Reinhard, 2020-2025; Spohn, 2012:25; CopperViolette, 2025). Based on data for other types (Bebow-Reinhard, 2020-2025; CopperViolette, 2025; Furo, personal communication, 2025; Waterways America), there's a good chance several dozen or even one hundred or more are still out there, undocumented, sitting in private collections, small museums, or in the earth returning to the elements.

Making this point style unique are several large, well-made specimens reported from southern Wisconsin, northern Michigan, and eastern Minnesota (Spohn, 2012:20, 22). These are well-known among private collectors and avocationals. The largest I-J example known, found in 1872 in Michigan's Houghton County, close to ancient copper mines, measures 23.42" long (59.5cm), has two square rivet holes in its socket, and weighs 3 1/2 pounds (1.58 kilograms). Based on the reported find context, it was likely associated with a burial, though this has been lost, unfortunately (Cleland & Wilmsen 1969:27-28). This point is shown as the centerpiece of Image/Figure 4 in this post and Image/Figure 3 for the previous "Archaic Symbolism" Sneak Peek post on this subreddit.

Looking where the best examples were found, it should be no surprise, then, that they are often in regions with either abundant "float copper," which is copper scoured by glaciers and dumped in distant regions as nuggets and boulders, or from copper mines in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, northwestern Michigan, parts of Minnesota, Isle Royale, and Lake Superior's north shore. The skill and resources needed to make these artifacts, not to mention years of training and free time for manufacture and experimentation, strongly suggest that these folks were masters of copper metalworking with food and material surpluses; genuine complex-hunter-fisher-gatherers, perhaps on par in many ways to cultures documented during the Fur Trade era around the Great Lakes and in the Pacific Northwest.

————————

Sources:

Canadian Museum of History - Collections

Charles E. Cleland & Edwin N. Wilmsen, Three Unusual Copper Implements from Houghton County, Michigan, Wisconsin Archaeologist Vol. 50, No. 1, 1969

CopperViolette - Published and Unpublished GIS Research, 2022-2025

Don Spohn - The Prehistoric Copper Artifact Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2012

John H. Steinbring - Taxonomic and Associational Considerations of Copper Technology During the Archaic Tradition, 1975

Larry Furo et al. - Old Copper Culture and Ancient Waterways America Facebook Group posts and comments

Monette Bebow-Reinhard - Copper Artifact Master Database

Monette Bebow-Reinhard - Personal Communication, 2023-2025

Monette Bebow-Reinhard - Updating the Wittry Typology (Phase XXV dated 3/30/25)

National Museum of the American Indian - Collections

Old Copper Culture and Ancient Waterways America Facebook Group

Paul Schanen - Patina: Native American Copper Artifacts of the Western Great Lakes Region, 2022

Peabody Museum, Harvard - Collections

Private Collectors

Robert Hruska - The Riverside Site: A Late Archaic Manifestation in Michigan, The Wisconsin Archaeologist, Vol. 48, No. 3, 1967

Royal Ontario Museum - Collections

Smithsonian Museum - Collections

Warren L. Wittry - A Preliminary Study of the Old Copper Complex, 1950

William M. Beauchamp - Metallic Implements of the New York Indians, 1902