Archeologists using drones find new clues at 1,000-year-old indigenous farm site in Michigan's Upper Peninsula
New research assisted by drone technology has added more details and understanding of what was already known to be a series of ancient farming fields in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
The study was led by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, with the findings .
"Through this research, we get this little window of preservation into pre-Colonial farming in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan," said senior author Jesse Casana, a professor of anthropology.
The research is pointing to the ancient agricultural area in the Anaem Omot region being 10 times larger than what was previously thought; making it the most complete ancient agricultural site confirmed in the eastern United States.
The site is along the Michigan-Wisconsin border.
"Our work shows that the ancestral Menominee communities were modifying the soil to completely rework the topography in order to plant and harvest corn at the near northern extent of where this crop can grow," Madeleine McLeester, assistant professor of anthropology, said. "This farming system was a massive undertaking requiring a lot of organization, labor, and know-how to maximize agricultural productivity."
Ancestors of what is now known as the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin constructed a series of raised ridge garden beds that were 4 to 12 inches in height and used to grow corn, beans, squash and other plants. That's the series of fields that the researchers took a look at.
The agriculture region is near already identified burial mounds and a village site that were excavated during the 1950s through 1970s. It was initially mapped and excavated in the 1990s, and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
On the request of Menominee tribal leaders, Dartmouth archaeologists were invited to survey and document the area. The team worked with David Grignon, tribal historic preservation officer for the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, and the late David Overstreet, a consulting archaeologist for the College of the Menominee Nation.
The survey took place in May 2023, after the snow had melted but before the forest tree leaves had emerged.
The team used drones equipped with lidar, a remote sensing technology that uses pulses of light from a laser. The lidar could detect changes in topography that are normally hidden under the forest tree canopy; while the drones could get close to ground level for a better look.
The lidar found signs of agricultural ridges across the landscape, a circular ring, remains of a building foundation, and even previously unknown burial mound locations.
Then in August 2023, the excavation team worked at three of the agricultural ridges near the Menominee River. They found broken pieces of ceramics, charcoal and soil additions. They also determined through radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples that the construction was around the year 1000 and rebuilt over the following 600 years.
The survey work focused on 330 acres, but researchers said there are signs that the site goes well beyond the designated area and was probably double that in size.
Research work will continue at the Menominee Sixty Islands site, the college said.
