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.COPPER CULTURE STATE PARK & MUSEUM.
Oconto County's Oldest Secret
 Northeastern Wisconsin |
This
48 acre park features an ancient
Indian burial ground from the Copper Culture People, artifacts from
which
were recently tested to approximately 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. Dr.
Thomas
C. Pleger, anthropologist, archeologist at University of Wisconsin -
Fox
Valley, wrote in 2000 that string found attached to an ancient copper
knife
recovered at this site was preserved, in part, by the copper oxidation,
enabling a radiocarbon date to be made. At present, this is the oldest
cemetery site in Wisconsin, and one of the oldest metal use
archeological
sites in North America. To read
more of Professor
Pleger's findings on line please click on the links below -
The
Old Copper Complex of the Western Great Lakes
suggested reading for recent updating of Copper Culture State Park burial information that puts the burials at a much earlier age:
Pleger,
Thomas C.
2001 New Dates for
the Oconto Old Copper Culture Cemetery." Papers in Honor of Carol I.
Mason. edited by Thomas C. Pleger, Robert A. Birmingham, and Carol I.
Mason. The
Wisconsin Archeologist,
Volume 82, No. 1 & 2, pp. 87-100.
Early
Cultures: Pre-European People of Wisconsin
The
park also contains the volunteer
maintained Werrenbroeck museum, which is open on Saturday and Sunday
afternoons
during the summer. This Belgium style early county home was
built
by Charles Werrenbroeck for his family in 1924 and still stands on the
original homestead foundation. For
more information
on the museum building and Belgian immigration to Oconto County and
Wisconsin
please click the links below -
Charles
Werrenbroeck House Museum,