An Indigenous ‘metropolis’ may be hidden under this Wisconsin lake

ByJacqueline Kehoe

Published August 7, 2023

• 9 min read

One hundred seventy-five years ago, Indigenous sites blanketed the American Midwest like stars blanket the sky—there were some 15,000 burial mounds scattered across Wisconsin alone. European settlers largely destroyed these sites as they moved west across the continent in the 19th and 20th centuries, leaving cornfields and courthouses in their stead. 

But there’s one part of ancient America that remained mostly untouched by the destructive force of modern settlement: underwater. A lake in the middle of Wisconsin’s capital city exemplifies this world, turning up incredible artifacts spanning thousands of years. Now that researchers suspect a village, they’re fighting against all odds to unearth more.

A canoe from the time of the Vikings

In June 2021, Wisconsin maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen was “chasing fish and picking up trash” on a routine dive in Madison’s Lake Mendota, when she thought she spotted the end of a dugout canoe jutting out of a now-submerged former shoreline. Amy Rosebrough, interim state archaeologist for the Wisconsin Historical Society, was called for a second opinion and agreed on the canoe identification, additionally pointing out seven rocks found inside the hull: net sinkers. Fishing gear.

The half-buried cache in the city’s largest lake remained a murky, hush-hush secret until state archaeologist Jim Skibo came on board in July 2021, quickly procuring funding to retrieve and date the canoe. The bets among archaeologists were flying: Thomsen’s money was on a 1950s-era Boy Scout canoe (“because it’s so nice-looking”); Rosebrough hoped for something older—maybe 300 years?

No one guessed the wood sample taken from the dugout would come back with a carbon date circa A.D. 850, revealing that the canoe was carved from a white oak felled during the era of Viking raids and the reign of Charlemagne. The 1,200-year-old discovery made international headlines—and then, in essentially the same spot less than a year later, Thomsen found another.

At 3,000 years old, Thomsen’s next Lake Mendota discovery would become the second-oldest dugout canoe found in the U.S., fashioned from an elm that thrived in dry, open savanna. (The oldest, in Florida, dates back 7,000 years.) Though both vessels can be traced to the Indigenous Ho-Chunk, their makers span epochs: We’re closer in time to the paddler of the 1,200-year-old canoe, Rosebrough notes, than they are to the paddler of the 3,000-year-old canoe. 

The finds are no surprise to Bill Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation onsite for both canoe retrievals. Ho-Chunk oral history states that the tribe has been in Dejope—“land of four lakes” in the Hoocąk language—since the retreat of the glaciers, and science is coming to agree. “People don’t give native cultures much credit for their oral processes,” he says. “When science goes in and verifies something we’ve been talking about for thousands of years, they’re shocked we’ve held onto that history.”

But beyond supporting the tribe’s oral knowledge, he adds, artifacts like these help tribal members rediscover their own cultural connection to the area. With the Ho-Chunk forced to relocate four separate times throughout the 1800s, “when a physical item shows our continued presence in the area, we’re just as excited as the next.”

It won’t be the last discovery, says Quackenbush. “My ancestors were living here up until the removal periods. There’s definitely more artifacts down there.” 

A new realm for archaeology

The obstacles to doing archaeology in urban lakes like Mendota are staggering: Mendota’s waters are murky for most of the year, requiring divers to excavate mostly blind in the silt and mud, searching for artifacts that may be covered with invasive zebra mussels. But what really incenses a pro like Thomsen is the lack of knowledge around dive flags—she gets consistently run over by boaters and wakeboarders. “It’s…not a happy place to dive.”

Then there’s retrieval. In November 2021, the 12-person crew tasked with recovering the 1,200-year-old canoe was operating in snow and racing against the creeping ice cover. They could’ve called in outside experts, but few exist for this scenario—and funding was limited. A borrowed Alaskan gold-mining pump was used to dredge the site; Skibo, the project’s head, even got scuba-certified to aid his team in the physical labor.

And then COVID stopped everything. The researchers needed a custom-built conservation tank where they could soak the wooden vessel in a special preservation fluid; when they couldn’t find a carpenter, Skibo built one himself. When it was time to fill the tank with polyethylene glycol, a bulking agent that supports the cell structure of wood, there was none to be found—it’s a key ingredient in COVID-19 vaccines. 

Then the second dugout canoe was discovered—in May 2022—and the arduous process had to be repeated. This time, the canoe was 1,800 years older, broken into some 30 pieces, and spongy. Thomsen describes it as handling “wet cardboard.” 

Those obstacles, however, would abruptly seem trivial. Skibo—well-known and well-loved among Wisconsinites as “the people’s archaeologist”—suffered fatal complications during a routine dive in Lake Mendota searching for artifacts on April 14th, 2023. He was 63 years old.

“As far as I’m concerned,” says Rosebrough, “he died in the line of duty. He was doing what he loved. In archaeology, we really can’t ask for more than that.” 

The search for an Indigenous ‘metropolis’

In the months following the tragic death of the state archaeologist, Skibo’s team continues his work—but with a twist. Beyond surveying for ancient canoes in the bottom of Lake Mendota, they’ll analyze the surface via ground-penetrating technology (GPR). They’ll also be looking for other evidence of human activity, like hearths or garbage deposits. 

Like Quackenbush, Skibo reckoned a lot more is to be found under Lake Mendota’s glossy surface. His “number one hypothesis”: an Indigenous village worthy of Unesco recognition—or at least a place on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Ho-Chunk oral history supports Skibo’s hypothesis—sort of. The current scientific assumption is that some 22 Ho-Chunk villages once surrounded Lake Mendota, with more extending across the chain of lakes Monona, Kegonsa, Wingra, and Waubesa. Quackenbush, however, counters with a crucial clarification: Dejope was one large living community. “Madison was a metropolis for us, just like it is for today’s society. It was hundreds of thousands of people, from the last glacial episode through the present day.”

The two dugout canoes will eventually go on display at a state history center scheduled to open in 2026, just a few blocks from Lake Mendota. A 3-D printed replica of the 1,200-year-old canoe will be on-site for hands-on discovery, demonstrating how a thousand years can pass across Dejope lands and yet, as Quackenbush notes, “here we sit…around those same lakes.”

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