May 28
This 500-year-old Oneota garbage pit represents a time capsule in which material was dumped within a brief period, perhaps as short as a week. The pit might have been dug initially to store food crops but once the food was removed, it was reused to dispose of village refuse. The pit contains broken pottery, flakes, a turtle shell, mussel shells and other artifacts. A volunteer is excavating one level of the feature, using trowels, picks, brushes, and bagging samples of soil for flotation. The garbage pit was excavated in the early 1990s from a site in the La Crosse area.