We were on our way back to Milwaukee after a week traipsing around upper Michigan and lower Ontario. But when we saw the sign on the freeway for Copper Culture State Park, and having recently seen a great exhibit on the region's Archaic Period at the Field Museum in Chicago, and a not-so-good one at the Milwaukee Public Museum ... well, we were in.
The 42-acre park is on the north side of the Oconto River, on the west side of the city of Oconto.
The park was once the site of a prehistoric cemetery of the Old Copper Complex people who occupied the northern Midwest from about 4,000 BCE to 2,000 BCE. In a nutshell, we don't know where these people came from, how they lived, or where they went.
The independently-operated Oconto Archaic Copper Museum, located within the Charles Werrebroeck Museum (an old farmhouse), was just being opened by Dick Doeren as we drove up. Dick showed us a short video, then went on to show us around and tell us more about the Copper Culture. Very informative!
The park also contains ancient burial grounds used by early Native Americans. It was uncovered in 1952 by a 13-year-old boy who unearthed human bones while playing in an old quarry here. However, the skeletons subsequently unearthed by archaeologists have apparently never been repatriated. There's also no way of knowing how many burials were disturbed before 1952 when the place was a functioning quarry. So we didn't want to invite bad things by tromping around this ancient cemetery.
Otherwise, we enjoyed our brief visit, and will come back when we're in the area. read more
