Archaeology of the Great Lakes

Archaeology of the Great Lakes
Name	Great Lakes archaeology
Region	Great Lakes
Period	Paleolithic to Historic
Notable sites	Kincaid Mounds, Mound City Group, Serpent Mound, Aztalan, Effigy Mounds National Monument, Cahokia
Notable archaeologists	Warren K. Moorehead, James A. Ford, Franz Boas, Helen C. R. Henshaw, William A. Ritchie
Coordinates	44°N 85°W

Contents

Archaeology of the Great Lakes examines material remains across the Great Lakes basin, encompassing regional studies in Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Research integrates investigations by institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, Royal Ontario Museum, Field Museum, Canadian Museum of History, and universities including University of Michigan, McMaster University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Minnesota, and Ohio State University. The field intersects with work by agencies like National Park Service, Parks Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and international collaborations including UNESCO designations.

Geography and Environment

The basin defined by Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario sits within the Laurentian Shield, St. Lawrence River, and the Mississippi River Basin, creating diverse ecotones recognized by Charles Darwin-influenced biogeography and studied by teams from Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Pleistocene glaciation events tied to the Wisconsin glaciation and the retreat mapped by Georges Cuvier and later by Louis Agassiz shaped postglacial shorelines such as Lake Nipissing, Lake Algonquin, and the Erie-Ontario Lowlands, informing site distribution analyzed by researchers from Harvard University and Yale University.

Early occupation includes Paleoindian components dated to Terminal Pleistocene contexts comparable to Clovis culture, Folsom tradition, and regional types like the Plano cultures. Key finds involve fluted points and kill sites investigated by archaeologists affiliated with National Museum of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum, Michigan State University, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Radiocarbon chronologies calibrated with work at Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and stratigraphic sequences correlated to Younger Dryas events frame regional settlement patterns, including documented sites near Madison (Wisconsin), Detroit, Cleveland, and Thunder Bay.

Woodland period developments show the emergence of pottery traditions such as Glacial Kame culture and Adena-associated mounds linked to the Adena culture and later the Hopewell tradition centered at sites studied by Squier and Davis and later excavated by Samuel G. Drake and Warren K. Moorehead. Mississippian influence extended from Cahokia into southern Lake Michigan shores with outlier communities at Kincaid and trade networks reaching Chaco Canyon, Etowah Indian Mounds, and Moundville. Ceramic typologies and isotopic studies conducted at University of Chicago and Northwestern University clarify interaction spheres involving Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Menominee ancestral groups.

Contact-era archaeology documents encounters recorded in Jesuit Relations, Champlain's voyages, and the fur trade involving Hudson's Bay Company and North West Company posts. Excavations at mission sites tied to Jean de Brébeuf and trading complexes linked to Fort Michilimackinac and Fort Detroit involve curators from Royal Ontario Museum, Detroit Historical Museum, and Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History (Pointe-à-Callière). Material culture analyses integrate collections from American Philosophical Society, Bureau of American Ethnology, and studies by scholars such as John Wesley Powell and Henry Schoolcraft.

Underwater archaeology in the basin addresses shipwrecks, submerged prehistoric landscapes, and port complexes explored by teams from Bureau of Ocean Energy Management partners, Wrecks of the Great Lakes projects, NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, and universities including Michigan Technological University and University of Windsor. Iconic shipwrecks linked to SS Edmund Fitzgerald, SS Eastland, HMS Ontario and schooners of the Great Lakes shipping industry are investigated alongside submerged paleolandscapes preserved under Glacial Lake Iroquois and Champlain Sea deposits. Dendrochronology and dendroarchaeology work ties to labs at Tree-Ring Laboratory at Columbia University.

Field methods include survey using LiDAR and magnetometry pioneered in projects funded by National Science Foundation and modeled on protocols by Canadian Archaeological Association and Society for American Archaeology. Laboratory analyses make use of stable isotope analysis at facilities like University of Oxford and McMaster University, and ancient DNA studies coordinated with Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Broad Institute. Cultural heritage management involves collaboration with descendant communities including Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Mississauga, Potawatomi, Wyandot, and Odawa, and regulatory frameworks administered by Canadian Environmental Assessment Act-era bodies and U.S. state historic preservation offices such as Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.

Major terrestrial sites include Mound City Group in Ohio, Serpent Mound in Adams County, Aztalan State Park in Wisconsin, Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa, and numerous lakeshore villages near Toronto and Milwaukee. Underwater discoveries at wrecks like SS Edmund Fitzgerald and HMS Ontario complement shoreline research at Fort Wayne, Fort York, and Fort Malden. High-profile projects involving Cahokia-linked exchange, isotope provenancing of maize cultivation from Mesoamerica through Mississippian networks, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions using cores analyzed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory have reshaped understanding of mobility, trade, and resilience in the basin.

Category:Archaeology by region