When you consider the oldest metallurgy in the world, do Egypt, Mesopotamia and other agricultural societies come to mind? If so, turn up the volume on From hard rock to heavy metal to explore Indigenous uses of metals across millennia in North America. As Michelle Bebber, David Pompeani and their colleagues have elsewhere demonstrated, the Great Lakes region preserves the world’s oldest known evidence of metallurgy, originating as early as c. 9000 BP (Pompeani et al. Reference Pompeani, Steinman, Abbott, Pompeani, Reardon, DePasqual and Mueller2021; Bebber et al. Reference Bebber, Buchanan and Holland-Lulewicz2022). This edited volume highlights the working of copper, meteoric iron and reworked iron trade items specifically among hunter-gatherer communities, providing case studies that underscore their technological sophistication and behavioural complexity across the continent from the Arctic to the Southeast.

Framed explicitly as rejection of progressivist models of metallurgical development, the Introduction by Michelle Bebber and Christopher Wolff and Chapter 1 (Cooper et al.) situate the work as an effort to “avoid the unilinear cultural evolutionary ‘hangover’” (pp.18–20) that persists in some technology studies and anthropology more broadly. Drawing on work by David Graeber and David Wengrow (Reference Graeber and Wengrow2021) and others, Kory Cooper and co-authors demonstrate that innovations in metal technology need not follow progressivist ‘stages’ of development. A metallography metaphor is apt here: this volume’s theoretical framework is a polishing wheel that allows its examples to reveal the ‘grain’ of sophisticated and innovative technological metal uses among North America’s hunter-gatherer societies. By ‘going against the grain’ of positivistic and evolutionary models of technological development, such as by explicitly defining metallurgy to include cold-working and annealing, this collection makes both methodological and theoretical advances.

While copper is the best-documented and earliest-used North American metal, several chapters (Chapters 2, 3, 10 & 11) address the use of meteoric iron, telluric iron and iron obtained through long-distance exchange, including contact with non-Indigenous groups. Patrick Jolicoeur (Chapter 2) usefully cautions against assumptions of a Norse origin rather than Asian sources for smelted metal objects in Late Dorset and early Inuit contexts without supporting chemical analyses; sourcing is a constant theme of the volume. Chronologically, the case studies span from 9000 BP to early colonial Beothuk (Newfoundland) examples, thereby capturing both long-term technological continuities and moments of transition.

Many chapters exemplify the importance of collections-based research and the reanalysis of large legacy datasets or curated objects. Chapters 1 and 4 develop broad geographic syntheses for copper usage in Northwestern North America and the Middle Atlantic Region using published data, while Chapter 2 innovatively uses hafting materials to compare Arctic metal tools inter-regionally. Others, such as Chapters 3 and 6, trace the biographies of individual objects or categories of artefacts, examining production techniques to elucidate cultural themes such as exchange, mobility, mortuary behaviours and potentially the intentions of the makers and users of these belongings. Chapter 8’s excellent re-engagement with the osteological sex of individuals interred with metal tools at the early Late Archaic ‘Old Copper’ Reigh site cemetery includes a discussion of a “gender bias towards designating burials containing grave goods as ‘male’ by field excavators in the 1950s” (p.163), critiquing blindspots inherent in osteological practices of previous generations of anthropologists, while situating metals within discussions of gender roles and social organisation.

On a related note, one area of concern lies in the volume’s treatment of mortuary contexts. Nearly half the data-driven chapters (five of 11) rely on mortuary datasets, either through revisiting published data (e.g. Chapter 8) or through physical analysis of funerary belongings. While some employ non-invasive typological or morphometric approaches (Chapters 4 & 7), others use minimally invasive methods such as LA-ICP-MS (Chapter 5). Chapter 3 includes metallographic sampling that is necessarily destructive. The lead author, Timothy McCoy, is identified in the ‘Outro’ as an Indigenous scholar, and with Catherine Corrigan, they contribute an innovative experimental and materials science investigation of Hopewell meteoric iron beads from a burial mound in Havana, Illinois. Destructive analyses of funerary objects should be undertaken judiciously and the choice to publish images of these (e.g. fig. 3.1) is debatable (Holland-Lulewicz Reference Holland-Lulewicz2025).

Given recent updates to the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA, effective in January 2024) in the USA, future research on mortuary belongings, even involving curated legacy collections, must include and prioritise new consultation with descendant communities at the outset. The editors call for greater Indigenous participation in future research; yet, this raises a key question: how could such studies benefit Indigenous descendant communities today? I suggest that, in technology studies as in any modern archaeological programme, research questions of specific interest to Indigenous communities must be defined collaboratively from the outset, rather than simply thanking living descendants through retrospective acknowledgements. Supporting Indigenous-led inquiry or efforts toward collaboration not only complies with the letter and spirit of NAGPRA but also may substantially (and beneficially) reshape future research trajectories.

That concern aside, the volume skilfully demonstrates how scientific examinations of metal technologies may be accomplished; the methodological scope of both new and established approaches is a noteworthy strength. The chapters collectively employ experimental archaeology, metallographic and elemental analyses, software-assisted attribute analyses and statistical studies, typology building, ethnohistory and comparative syntheses. While oral history and ethnohistoric accounts are mentioned in passing in many contributions, Chapter 10 interrogates ethnohistoric and documentary evidence for the role of introduced European iron technology on the island of Newfoundland beginning in the early sixteenth century. Experimental archaeology studies (Chapters 3, 9 & 11) offer insights into potential advantages or drawbacks of adopting and innovating metal tools and adornments, exploring the human elements of technology through both actualistic and controlled experiments. Examinations of efficiencies of metal projectile points in parallel with stone counterparts (Chapters 7 & 11) explore the coexistence of those technological categories, interrogating the oft-cited distinction of flintknapping as a reductive process while metallurgy is fundamentally transformative.

The diversity of contributors, ranging from senior scholars to emerging researchers, underscores both the vibrancy and future potential of this field. From hard rock to heavy metal succeeds in providing a theoretically informed and comprehensive scientific examination of Indigenous North American archaeometallurgical practices specifically among non-agrarian societies. It fills a critical gap by focusing on tools and utilitarian technology, providing an important counterbalance to the long-standing emphasis on native copper’s ‘wonderful power’ in ceremonial contexts.