What's Canoe With You?: Understanding Wisconsin's Inland Prehistoric Maritime Landscapes

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Attention this is a Submergency: Incorporating Global Submerged Records", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Wisconsin’s inland waterways have been used as transportation corridors and places to collect resources for thousands of years. Despite this, prehistoric maritime landscapes are often missing from the archaeological record due to a lack of material evidence. Instead, village and ritual sites are simply noted as being near sources of water, and aquatic food remains (mussels, fish bones, etc.) have been recorded at village sites. Recent finds in southern Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota offer some of the earliest precontact maritime material culture identified in the region and serve as a catalyst for the study of Wisconsin’s inland prehistoric maritime landscapes. This paper examines the recent documentation and excavation of the Lake Mendota Dugout Canoe and discusses how these findings have led to a reinvestigation of the region’s climate and lake levels 1,200 years ago. Data from this research is a preliminary step in understanding Wisconsin’s prehistoric maritime landscapes and the region’s people.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Attention this is a Submergency: Incorporating Global Submerged Records   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow