Aztalan State Park

Aztalan State Park preserves a major Native settlement on the Crawfish River in Wisconsin that flourished from about 900 to 1300 CE as part of the Middle Mississippian tradition. Its people lived in planned house clusters around a ceremonial plaza, farmed maize, gathered wild foods, hunted, fished, and stored crops in pits. Surviving remains include flat-topped platform mounds and a reconstructed palisade enclosing the settlement. Artifacts such as copper from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and shells from the Gulf Coast show long-distance exchange. Though damaged after the 1830s by farming and artifact hunting, archaeological work and preservation efforts eventually protected one of the Upper Midwest’s best-known Mississippian sites.

Aztalan, Wisconsin · United States