A new archaeological study is spotlighting Michigan's Upper Peninsula as home to what experts now call the "most complete" ancient agricultural site in the eastern US, per the New York Times. The area, known as Sixty Islands and considered sacred by the Menominee Nation, contains traces of settlement dating back as far as 8,000BC, with new discoveries revealing that Menominee ancestors built a thriving agricultural hub. Although today's cold climate and poor soils seem inhospitable to farming, new research led by Dartmouth's Madeleine McLeester reveals that large fields of crops—mainly corn, but likely also beans and squash—were cultivated here between AD1000 and AD1600.
Contrary to long-standing beliefs that intensive agriculture required centralized, hierarchical societies, Sixty Islands was managed by seasonally mobile, egalitarian groups who cleared the land, created extensive raised garden beds, and even devised ways to fertilize the soil with household waste and natural materials. Drone-mounted lidar surveys conducted last year identified hundreds of acres of unusually well-preserved agricultural ridges, along with burial mounds, ritual spaces, and remnants of logging and possible trading posts. The ridges, first spotted by archaeologist David Overstreet decades ago, are believed to have helped protect crops against frost and manage moisture.
Scientists say this discovery, outlined Thursday in Science, may rewrite our understanding of Indigenous ingenuity and agriculture in North America. Some argue Menominee ancestors were innovative farmers capable of producing food surpluses on otherwise challenging land. "This astonishing paper shows how much we've underestimated the geographic range, productivity, and sustainability of intensive Indigenous agriculture across North America," Washington University anthropologist Gayle Fritz tells NPR. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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