[muawiyah]

BTW, just over 5,000 years ago the Indians living near Oconto, Wisconsin smelted copper.

They were first.

Guarantee your people were napping flint and these guys had figured out copper.

[nwrep]

BTW, just over 5,000 years ago the Indians living near Oconto, Wisconsin smelted copper. They were first.

That is nonsense. Copper has been mined in the Old World for thousands of years, since prehistoric times. Some of the oldest copper-ore deposits of antiquity were in the Sinai, Syria, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Iberia and Central Europe.

[MadManDan]

I'm pretty sure European civilizations had metal tools by 3000 BC also. The stone age was over by then if I'm not mistaken.

[FierceDraka]

That's interesting about the copper smelting 5000 years ago in America.

Had some native genius invented the wheel in North America, the Euros would have found the conquest far more difficult to accomplish.