Situating Copper Crescents

Abstract

This report considers copper crescent-shaped objects from Ontario, contextualizing them within broader archaeological discussions of the Old Copper Complex. I focus on a small assemblage of antiquarian-collected crescents from the Royal Ontario Museum. A literature review comprises the bulk of this report; crescents recovered from sites located in the center of the Old Copper Complex, in current-day Wisconsin and Michigan, help to situate examples in the antiquarian collection. I discuss crescents in terms of their chronological and geographic breadth, their formal variation, and the different depositional contexts in which they are found. Three examples from the antiquarian collection represent novel forms of copper crescent that are not represented in the accepted typology. Two of these, collected approximately 1,600 km apart from one another, closely resemble stone and copper ulu knives, each with a unique copper handle that once bore a haft. By situating this particular collection within broader discussions of native copper, this report demonstrates the continued importance of thinking through poorly-contextualized archaeological collections while remembering the limitations of rigid, typological thinking.