Old Copper Culture Cemetery
Copper Culture State Park, Oconto, Oconto County
At this site approximately 7500 years ago, Wisconsin Indians gathered to bury their dead. They were of the Old Copper Culture, the earliest known people to inhabit Wisconsin. Because of their use of copper tools, weapons, and ornaments, this group became known as the Old Copper people. They fashioned spearpoints, knives, and fishhooks from pure copper nuggets that may have been transported from mines as far away as Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Through a process of heating and hammering, the nuggets were made into tools and various other_objects. Old Copper people lived by hunting game, fishing, and collecting plant foods. They interred some of their dead in graves and cremated others in pits. Implements of copper, stone, bone and shell were buried with them. This particular site was excavated in 1952 by the Wisconsin Archeological Society and the Oconto County Historical Society.
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[Source: McBride, Sarah Davis. History Just Ahead (Madison:WHS, 1999).]