Indigenous Communities

Based on archaeological evidence, the first known inhabitants of Wisconsin were the Paleo-Indians and Archaic cultures, who lived as hunters and gatherers between 10,000 and 3000 years ago. They were followed by the Woodland culture, which continued until about 1,000 years ago and was the first to make pottery, build earthen burial mounds, adopt the bow-and-arrow as a weapon, and raise beans, squash, and corn. The St. Croix River served as a trade route from Lake Superior to the Mississippi and farther south; copper from the Lake Superior basin and red pipestone from northern Wisconsin have been found in caves and campsites along the rivers, and tribes likely also traded food and medicine plants, introducing new plant species. The first recorded inhabitants of the St. Croix River Valley, including St. Croix County, were the Dakota, one of three groups that were part of the Sioux Nation. The Late Woodland culture existed from about year 500 until the arrival of Europeans around 1650, and archaeologists refer to the earlier inhabitants as the Oneota, the ancestors of the Dakota. Also known as the Mdewakanton Soiux, the Dakota occupied territory that included the St. Croix and Mississippi river valleys across northern Minnesota and Wisconsin for approximately two to three thousand years. In the mid 1600's, the Ojibwe, or Chippewa, began moving into the Great Lakes region and eventually the St. Croix Valley after encroachment by other Native Americans pushed them west from their original homeland near the Atlantic Ocean. Wisconsin had more burial mounds built than any other U.S. state, most of them between 2,700 and 700 years ago by the probable ancestors of the Ho-Chunk, Dakota, and Menominee, and as few as 4,000 remain today; in 1985, Wisconsin passed legislation to protect mounds and other burial sites.

Houlton, Wisconsin · United States