An Amateur Looks at Old World/New World Copper Sources and Replies to a Critic of his Method (I)

One Ricardo Calvário who claims to be writing in the framework of something called the "Institute For Natural Philosophy"* has written a paper called "Ancient Copper Mines of the Old World" claimed to be a "120 minute read", that he boasts is in the top 1% of the "most read" papers on the whole of Academia.edu where he posted it recently (it has at the moment just 261 views).   The publication date is given as "2025". We are told by " Ricardo Calvário - History Myths and Legends [@RicardoCalvrio1]" that:

"In this paper you will find conclusive evidence, supported by more than 100 academic papers, that the Copper Age of the Old World could not have existed without the Trans-Atlantic trade of Copper from the UP [Upper Peninsula of Michigan PMB] area of the US. https://academia.edu/143773577/Ancient_Copper_Mines_of_the_Old_World

I decided to read this, but was disappointed. I found it difficult to navigate through, to get to the actual arguments. Two hours of frustration, with not a lot at the end to show for it. So I posted a couple of tweets commenting on it on Twitter, warning any of my followers who might try to do the same what I think they will encounter (which I think is a FAIR use of an archaeologist's social media). Remember we are talking about a 60-page long presentation of information from some 40 different - and widely scattered - sites that is expected to take you two hours to get through it:

Badly organised paper, could do with an abstract and a full summary list of the sites discussed. Scrolling through I see NO mention of newly-discovered evidence from Ukraine, little mention of sources in Russia or Scandinavia. The "New World" sources are only sketchily presented./ the evidence for dating is NOT presented. These however are not the only Cu sources in Americas, why not give details of the rest? It looks to me as if the conclusion was first formulated and "facts" gathered to match it. Should start with chemical analysis, not special pleading./ Layout of paper, maps and illustrations need more work. References appalling, simply numbered lists of random sources for each site, but no links in the text to them, showing which evidence has been taken from which source. This renders them pretty much meaningless.

I stand by all that. The layout and structure of the paper are not at all user-friendly. The manner the referencing is done is amateurish and ignores the whole purpose of citing support for particular statements. The author, in publishing on a site called "Academia.edu" needs to decide who the audience is and what his aim is, is he writing to present his case to people like my mum and Joe Scroggins who might decide to join a tour with his "Institute"? Or is he trying to persuade the academic world (Academia.edu) that there is important evidence they've missed?

Anyway, @RicardoCalvrio1, who obviously more time to devote to Twitter than I do, decided to reply... at some length (underlining is mine)...'Reply to my 1st critique on this platform':

" Reply to Paul Barford, Archaeologist, post: https://x.com/PortantIssues/status/1979531964647666063, present in this platform as @PortantIssues:

Thank you for not only reading my paper, but also for granting me with (sic) important advice and council. I assure you I took every word into consideration and thus here present my respectful reply. All things considered, I must first note your critical approach was not of an encouraging nature but dismissive and, dare I say it, beside the point. However, I have no issue on being wrong, for it means I can learn something new. Under such notion, I am grateful for that while addressing your critique, I was blessed with new facts that had escaped me thus far. For instance, the existence of Native Copper outside the UP, USA. Though, taken in consideration the novelty of this information, I believe I can be excused. Now for the facts, into your negative points:

The abstract absence:

The present work was composed with a deliberate departure from certain rigid academic conventions>, among them the inclusion of a formal abstract. This decision was neither accidental nor negligent, but the result of careful consideration of the work’s intended reach and function. The study is addressed not solely to the academic archaeometallurgist, but also to the wider circle of readers who, though perhaps untrained in the technical idiom of the sciences, seek to understand the origins and enigmas of ancient metallurgy with clarity and intellectual honesty.
The traditional abstract, while useful for the specialist who approaches a paper with pre-established conceptual frames, often reduces complex ideas to a sequence of technical shorthand - an entrance that narrows rather than opens the reader’s field of perception. To begin this study in such a compressed and coded form would have risked distancing those very readers for whom the broader implications of the argument - the imbalance between known Old World copper sources and the archaeological evidence of its vast distribution - are of genuine and universal interest.
Instead, the work commences with an expanded introduction, wherein the problem is stated in its historical and logical dimensions, and where the reader, regardless of discipline, may apprehend the full horizon of the question before entering the technical detail. This method, I believe, achieves a clearer balance between accessibility and precision, and aligns with the humanistic purpose of archaeology: to communicate knowledge, not to conceal it behind the walls of professional jargon.
It should also be made clear that such structural choices - whether or not an abstract precedes the argument - bear no relevance to the evidentiary strength of the data herein presented, nor to the logical coherence of the conclusions derived from it. To question the validity of a study on the basis of its layout rather than its evidence is to mistake form for substance. The argument stands, not by virtue of its adherence to editorial convention, but upon the empirical record it brings forth and the analytical reasoning it sustains.

The omission of new Ukraine data:

It is true that, at the time of writing, the recent Ukrainian studies concerning early metallurgy and native copper occurrences were not yet integrated into this work. I am grateful for the reference, for every new piece of research contributes to the greater mosaic of human history. However, even with their inclusion, the overall pattern that emerges remains consistent with the conclusions here presented.
The discovery of native copper occurrences and the suggestion of local exploitation in parts of Ukraine indeed raise the recorded purity of Old World copper to remarkable levels- approaching 99.74% in some artefacts. Yet, as the very authors of these studies acknowledge, this body of research is still in its infancy, and its results, though promising, are fragmentary and often speculative. The evidence of prehistoric mining and smelting, while intriguing, remains unevenly distributed and inconclusive in determining the scale of production or its capacity to sustain regional demand.
The Ukrainian data, when taken at their strongest, indicate that certain communities might have mined a portion of their copper requirements locally. However, they do not overturn the fundamental imbalance observed across the Old World: the sheer volume of copper artefacts, tools, and trade goods far exceeds the output that these newly identified sites could have produced. The quantitative disparity remains. Local activity could supplement, but not supplant, broader supply systems.
Moreover, the interpretive stance adopted in some of these studies - casting doubt on the possibility of long-distance trade networks in the fourth and third millennia BC - is itself symptomatic of a persistent underestimation of prehistoric societies. To argue that ancient peoples were incapable of sustaining transregional exchange simply because “the wheel was not yet invented” is to reduce the ingenuity of early civilizations to the limitations of our own imagination. The archaeological record from the Near East to the Indus, from the Caucasus to North Africa, abounds with evidence of trade routes that spanned thousands of kilometres long before the rise of formal states or wheeled transport.
The view that local resources must explain all finds in the absence of nearby ore is a methodological reflex of modern scepticism, not a reflection of prehistoric reality. Cultures of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages were not isolated enclaves of subsistence but dynamic participants in expansive networks of exchange, knowledge, and material culture. To dismiss their ability to trade across great distances is to dismiss the very record that archaeology itself has brought to light.
Therefore, the new Ukrainian material, while valuable and deserving of further study, does not alter the essential conclusion of this work: that Old World copper production, as presently evidenced, remains insufficient to account for the metallurgical abundance of prehistory, and that the paradox at the heart of this investigation stands unshaken.

Little mention of sources in Russia or Scandinavia:

I welcome the reminder to include the rich and growing literature on mining in the Ural and Scandinavian regions. Contemporary studies do indeed demonstrate prehistoric activity in the Urals and confirm the long-term economic significance of mining in Scandinavian Bergslagen - yet the chronological and quantitative picture matters. The Nordic Bronze Age, as recent syntheses make clear, relied heavily on imported copper and tin rather than on extensive local Bronze Age extraction; Falun and related Bergslagen deposits rise to prominence only in later periods. This supports, not weakens, my central paradox. Likewise, while the Urals can be added to the roster of Old World suppliers - and recent isotope work links some oxide ingots to South Ural sources - the published datasets do not yet demonstrate the sustained, high-magnitude production in the relevant Bronze-Age windows that would be required to erase the imbalance documented in this study. In short: these regions complicate the map of supply, but they do not resolve the quantitative shortfall. The conclusion of a structural Old World copper paradox therefore stands.

The "New World" sources are only sketchily” presented:

It must first be clarified that the central purpose of this work was not to offer a comprehensive metallurgical survey of the Western Hemisphere, but to expose and document the paradox that defines the Old World record: the profound disproportion between the copper we can demonstrably account for in mined tonnage and the vast mass of artefacts recovered from prehistoric contexts. The investigation was therefore constructed as an audit of absence - a quantitative and archaeological assessment of how the known mines and their measured outputs fall short, often by orders of magnitude, of explaining the material culture they are presumed to have supplied.

The reference to the Upper Great Lakes and related New World deposits was made not to shift the focus of the study, but to indicate a possible reservoir that might reconcile this imbalance. The mention of those sources is sufficient for that purpose: to show that elsewhere on the planet, vast and demonstrably ancient extractions of native copper existed, temporally compatible with the Old World deficit. The detailed geological and cultural analysis of those American deposits constitutes a research field of its own - immense in scope and literature - and lies beyond the operational limits of this specific argument.

What mattered here was not to reproduce the extensive American mining bibliography, but to demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Old World mines - however generously their output may be estimated - could not, in aggregate, have furnished the millions of artefacts extant in the archaeological record. That task, which was the primary objective of this paper, has been fully and rigorously achieved.

Thus, the observation that the New World evidence was only “sketchily” presented, while rather inelegant, is at best, a comment on scope, not on substance. The logical structure of the argument remains intact: whether one accepts or rejects the New World hypothesis, the Old World shortfall stands as an empirical fact, unaltered by stylistic preference or by the distribution of attention within the text.

Appalling References:

The observation that the references of this paper are “appalling” deserves clarification, for it misrepresents both the method and the scope of the work. The present study contains, not a casual list of names, but an extensive and carefully curated corpus of sources, gathered from the major academic databases, journals, and archaeological reports available at the time of writing. Each mining site discussed is supported by its respective primary literature, and the closing bibliography compiles, in one place, an unprecedented concentration of metallurgical, archaeological, and geochemical documentation on the subject. The referencing system was chosen deliberately. To include continuous parenthetical citations within the text - as if this were a purely technical report - would have disrupted the rhythm and accessibility of a work intended equally for academic and non-academic readers. The decision follows the same rationale that guided the omission of a formal abstract: clarity and inclusivity were placed above rigid conformity to disciplinary style. The evidential substance remains fully traceable; each claim corresponds to a source explicitly named and included in the bibliography.
To dismiss this corpus as “appalling” suggests either you, Paul Barford, Archaeologist, did not consult the bibliography in its entirety or that you expect quotations to substitute for comprehension. The presence or absence of in-text markers does not affect the veracity of data; it merely alters the aesthetic of presentation. Verification, in scholarly practice, requires the reading of sources, not the counting of parentheses.
Indeed, it is precisely because the subject is vast and interdisciplinary that a synthetic work of this nature was required. Until now, the data pertaining to Old World copper production have remained dispersed across hundreds of local studies. What has been done here is not a repetition of those findings but their unification - a panoramic view demonstrating that, when taken together, the outputs of all known Old World mines fall drastically short of the metallurgical evidence in the archaeological record. The so-called “Copper Paradox” thus ceases to be an academic rumour and stands revealed as a measurable historical fact. This paper, the result of independent yet rigorous research, has already been read and discussed with other scholars who did not find its referencing “appalling” but rather admired its breadth and synthesis. That such a comprehensive bibliographic foundation should be dismissed with a single adjective is therefore not an evaluation of the work itself, but a reflection of the superficial manner in which it was read.

On the Layout, Maps, and Illustrations:

Your observation concerning the visual presentation of the paper - specifically the maps, charts, and illustrative elements - is both fair and appreciated. Indeed, visual aids serve not merely as embellishments but as integral components of comprehension, allowing readers to grasp at once the geographical and quantitative relationships that text alone can only describe sequentially. I am grateful for this reminder, and I fully concur that such additions will enrich the clarity and pedagogical strength of the work. It may be noted, however, that the absence of such figures in the first edition was not due to neglect, but to the constraints of format and the preliminary nature of the document’s publication. The maps, graphs, and comparative charts have since been completed, and their inclusion in the forthcoming revision will render the visual framework of the study commensurate with the depth of its data. This enhancement, therefore, stands not as a correction to a flaw, but as a natural evolution of a work whose primary concern was - and remains - the integrity of its empirical foundation.

On the References and the Charge of “Meaninglessness”:

The remark that the references are “pretty much meaningless” demands a firmer response. Such a statement, though perhaps born of haste, misrepresents both the method and the substance of this research. The bibliographic corpus compiled in Ancient Copper Mines of the Old World is neither arbitrary nor decorative; it constitutes the very scaffolding upon which the entire analytical structure rests. Each cited work corresponds to a verifiable datum - be it archaeological, geochemical, or historical - drawn from the authoritative literature of the field.
It is true that the references are presented as numbered lists appended to each section rather than embedded as parenthetical interruptions in the text. This stylistic choice, as previously explained, was deliberate. The goal was to preserve the rhythm and readability of a work addressed not solely to specialists, but to all readers who seek to understand the origins of early metallurgy without being forced to navigate a thicket of academic shorthand. To conflate stylistic economy with evidentiary weakness is to confuse form with substance - a methodological error unworthy of serious scholarship.
To declare that such references are “meaningless” is, therefore, inaccurate and unjust. It disregards the hundreds of primary and secondary sources that were read, cross-examined, and integrated into a coherent synthesis - one that, for the first time, quantifies the cumulative copper output of forty major Old World mines and demonstrates the resulting imbalance with archaeological abundance. The data are explicit, the sources transparent, and the conclusions empirically grounded.
Indeed, this very critique reveals a paradox within itself: a dismissal of the work’s method on grounds of presentation while ignoring the substance that presentation conveys. Such bias, whether conscious or not, stands as a mirror to the intellectual complacency that this study seeks to challenge - the habit of rejecting new interpretations not on evidential grounds, but because they unsettle long-held assumptions. Thus, I must respectfully reject the assertion that its references or evidential apparatus are meaningless. On the contrary, they form one of the most extensive and meticulously cross-verified bibliographies ever assembled on the subject of Old World copper mining. The argument remains unbroken: the data are sound, the method transparent, and the conclusion empirical.

Conclusion

In reviewing the totality of these critiques, one cannot help but notice that they dwell less upon the substance of the work than upon its surface. The argument itself - the quantitative and archaeological case for a structural imbalance in Old World copper production - was left largely untouched. Instead, attention was diverted to matters of form, style, and personal preference. Such preoccupations, though common in our time, do not constitute scientific criticism; they are symptoms of a scholarly culture that too often mistakes orthodoxy for rigour.
To criticize a work’s appearance without engaging its evidence is not analysis but avoidance. The facts, figures, and sources presented in Ancient Copper Mines of the Old World remain open to examination by any who care to test them. That is how science proceeds: by confrontation with data, not by adherence to convention. The true task of scholarship is not to defend inherited narratives, but to question them - repeatedly, and without fear of discomfort.
Regrettably, the tone and substance of this particular review fall short of that standard. To dismiss other’s research on the grounds of layout or stylistic presentation, while ignoring the data that could confirm or contradict its conclusions, betrays not critical thinking but its absence. The refusal to engage with evidence is not scepticism - it is belief masquerading as science.
If these words are read with fairness, they will be understood not as reproach, but as an appeal: that archaeology, and indeed all science, recover the humility of its method - the willingness to doubt itself. Every new piece of evidence, however inconvenient, enlarges our understanding of the human story. To reject inquiry in favour of dogma is to abandon the very principle that once made discovery possible.
For my part, I remain open to all correction founded upon data, experiment, and verifiable reasoning. What I cannot accept - and what no true scholar should accept - is dismissal in place of debate, prejudice in place of proof, and silence in the face of evidence.

Ufff. That was a bit wordy as a reply to three short tweets. I think that deserves a reply to clarify what the author cannot see for the trees.

Sadly, unlike my main blog, this one cannot (?) do text breaks, so I'll end this here. I'll contine on a second one that (too) might well turn out to be longer than this discussion merits (Doubling Down on Method: Old World/New World Copper Sources (II))


* Institute For Natural Philosophy (no physical address or funding details/affiliations given): "Our objectives: Research - Provide a platform for the sharing of cutting edge research. / Community - Build a community of independent researchers for a common cause. / Content - Publish videos, podcasts, papers that benefit the alternative community. / Tours - Provide tours all around the world for ancient history enthusiasts [...]". Of course, the ever-present money spinning 'touring with an expert'. Here's their Twitter page, make of that what you will.