By, Henriette Mertz

Originally published in Ancient American Magazine.

Reprinted with permission from The Midwestern Epigraphic Society Journal, Beverley Moseley

The Newberry tablet no longer exists. Found on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it represented only one of thousands of inscribed artifacts recovered from mounds dotting the state from roughly 1890 to 1920, most of which were destroyed. The enormity of such a loss to history and inscribed artifacts were sacrificed to the hypothesis that no ancient peoples, other than the historic Indian, ever arrived in America. The tragic disappearance of priceless, irreplaceable material must be born by University of Michigan officials, whose responsibility it was to preserve these matters.

The prehistory of the Copper Country, long haunted by tales of a bygone race has yet to be told. Few Americans are even aware of the extensive mining activity that took place on Isle Royale in Lake Superior or along the Trap Range of the Upper Peninsula where approximately 500,000 tons of pure copper were mined out sometime between 1800 and 1200 B.C.

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