{"id":323952,"date":"2025-11-29T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/archaeologists-in-wisconsin-unearth-an-ancient-parking-lot-with-16-dugout-canoes-including-one-thats-5200-years-old\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T20:22:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T20:22:00","slug":"archaeologists-in-wisconsin-unearth-an-ancient-parking-lot-with-16-dugout-canoes-including-one-thats-5200-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=323952","title":{"rendered":"Archaeologists in Wisconsin Unearth an Ancient ‘Parking Lot’ With 16 Dugout Canoes\u2014Including One That’s 5,200 Years Old"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The team has several theories about how Indigenous groups created and used the vessels, which were discovered during research over the past five years<\/h2>\n
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Sarah Kuta<\/a><\/p>\n

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Most of the canoes are still submerged in Lake Mendota, but archaeologists have recovered two of them.
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In 2021, archaeologists unearthed the remains of a 1,200-year-old\u00a0dugout canoe<\/a> from a lake in Madison, Wisconsin. A year later, they found a second canoe in the same lake\u2014and this time, the vessel was\u00a03,000 years old<\/a>. Then they discovered more and more, eventually realizing that they had stumbled upon an entire canoe \u201cparking lot,\u201d writes Todd Richmond for the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In total, researchers have found 16 canoes in Lake Mendota, a 9,781-acre body of water in Madison. Based on the number of canoes and the location of the site, archaeologists suspect the vessels were intentionally stashed there so that anyone could use them for navigating the region\u2019s waterways\u2014sort of like a modern bike-share program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a parking spot that\u2019s been used for millennia, over and over,\u201d\u00a0Tamara Thomsen<\/a>, a maritime archaeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society, tells the AP.<\/p>\n

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A\u00a03,000-year-old dugout canoe was discovered in 2022 and is now being preserved.<\/p>\n

Dean Witter \/ Wisconsin Historical Society<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the past few years, Thomsen has been collaborating with the preservation officers with the Ho-Chunk Nation and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, as well as\u00a0Sissel Schroeder<\/a>, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Forest Products Laboratory. Together, they\u2019re unraveling the mysteries of the Indigenous canoes, which are some of the oldest surviving specimens of their kind in eastern North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just feels like [the work is] making a difference,\u201d Thomsen tells the AP. \u201cEach one of these canoes gives us another clue to the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Quick fact: The oldest canoe in eastern North America<\/h4>\n

Researchers say that a canoe unearthed near Orlando<\/a> dates back roughly 7,000 years.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Today, Lake Mendota has a maximum depth of\u00a083 feet<\/a>. However, from roughly 5500 B.C.E. to 1000 B.C.E., researchers think the area experienced a drought. During that time, Lake Mendota was probably only four feet deep at the site where the canoes were found.<\/p>\n

Archaeologists have now mapped the locations of all 16 canoes. They\u2019re situated in two distinct groupings, near places where water flowed down to the lake from higher elevations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s bluffs that are about 35 feet above the lake, and really the only access to get up and down to the lake is through those wash ways,\u201d Thomsen tells\u00a0Wisconsin Public Radio<\/a>\u2019s Sarah Lehr. \u201cAnd we believe that those likely were entry access points for millennia, and that\u2019s why the canoes were left in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The canoes are situated in two distinct groupings, near places where water flowed down to the lake from higher elevations.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin Historical Society<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Archaeologists also found stone \u201cnet sinkers\u201d with several of the vessels, which suggests they were sometimes used for fishing. But they were also probably used to travel between communities and visit spiritual sites.<\/p>\n

Radiocarbon dating has revealed that the oldest canoe is around 5,200 years old, while the youngest is 700 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe canoes give us insight into a sophisticated travel network and interconnected communities who used their incredible skills and knowledge to live and thrive on lands where we still live and thrive today,\u201d says Larry Plucinski, tribal historic preservation officer for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThey reflect a deep relationship with the environment and the ingenuity of our ancestors.\u201d<\/p>\n

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