Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center @ UWL

Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center (MVAC) at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UW-L) is involved in researching, preserving, and teaching about the archaeological resources of the Upper Mississippi River region.  

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This bone pendant was recovered from a hearth exposed by plowing at the Sand Lake site located north of La Crosse. Bone pendants have been found at a number of late precontact Oneota sites in the La Crosse area.

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Bill Gresens’ Archaeology Book Review for June 2026

Bone Box by Jay Amberg (4/4 trowels)

The discovery of an ossuary containing earth-shaking remain and artifacts plunge an innocent American and a young archaeologist into a world of danger and intrigue.

Read the entire review at:  https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/book-reviews/?review=372957

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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.

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The Mississippi and smaller rivers and streams provided many fish, with freshwater drum, catfish, northern pike, suckers, gar, bowfin, bullheads and sturgeon popular. Fishing techniques have been suggested from the nature of some of the artifacts recovered. They can also be suggested from the nature and size of the fish. Large fish may have been speared. Nets and seines would have been the most efficient way to harvest schools of smaller fish in the shallow backwaters. Even crayfish and turtles were eaten.  Pictured is a bone harpoon (left) and two netsinkers (right).

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Gullickson’s Glen is a small overhanging rock shelter located in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin.  Findings suggest that Native Americans were occupying the rockshelter as long as 2000 years ago, although the petroglyphs probably do not date farther back than 800 years ago.  The petroglyphs at Gullickson’s Glen are similar in style to other rock art in the region.  Pictured is a human figure located on a wall outside the rock shelter.  Link to additional images from Gullickson’s Glen:  http://mvac.uwlax.edu/past-cultures/specific-sites/rock-art/#Gullickson

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MVAC Senior Research Associate Dr. Connie Arzigian explains how oolites formed, and how they became part of the chert used by Native Americans.

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Bill Gresens’ Archaeology Book Review for May 2026

The Secrets of Stelida by Vanessa Gordon (4/4 trowels)

Martin Day’s participation in an excavation overlooking the Naxos village of Stelida yields mysteries both ancient and distressingly contemporary.

Read the entire review at:  https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/book-reviews/?review=369310

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This ceramic effigy pipe is thought to have been made in northern Europe sometime in the 17th or 18th century.  Most of the face is intact and seems to depict someone perhaps of Russian origin.  It was found at a prehistoric Oneota Site north of La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1979.

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Former UWL archaeology student Matt Hill (now Associate Professor at Iowa State University) excavating the parasphenoid and a few other dorsal cranial bones of a lake sturgeon from a refuse pit at the Pammel Creek site in the late 1980s.  Fish were an important food source and were harvested throughout the summer.  This sturgeon has an estimated live weight of 50 pounds.  Lake sturgeon would have been easiest to harvest in the spring during spawning.  The Pammel Creek site (located south of La Crosse, Wisconsin) was occupied during the Fifteenth century, A.D. by a culture we now call Oneota.

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Archaeologists think that many of the features found at archaeological sites were originally dug to serve as storage pits for agricultural crops (corn, beans, squash – all of which can often be recovered during flotation in light fraction samples). The structure of the pit may well have been similar to that described by an Hidatsa woman, Buffalo Bird Woman to anthropologist Gilbert Wilson, who published Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden in 1917  (https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html). The pit was lined with grasses or bark to keep the crops from becoming moldy from contact with the soil. The outer layer consisted of chains of corncobs, with shelled corn inside, as well as slices of dried squash.  A drawing of Buffalo Bird Woman’s storage pit can be seen at: https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/buffalo/garden/garden.html#VII. Archaeologists rarely find intact storage features as they were reused as refuse pits but we do sometimes find remnants of the pit lining, including bark at the base, or grasses on the margin of the pit.  Left - the storage/refuse pit pictured is from an Oneota site in La Crosse County. Right - an image of thatch, presumed to be from the pit lining, still adhering to corn kernels that were burned in a storage pit.

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Thanks to Jim Theler for this week’s post –

The most spectacular exhibit at the UW-Madison Geology Museum is the imposing 10-foot-high reconstructed skeleton of the Boaz Mastodon. Mastodons and mammoths, like their modern elephant relatives, were massive. They lived south of the glacial ice across much of North America until the end of the Ice Age (Pleistocene Era) about 11,000 to 12,000 years ago. It’s no surprise that the huge bones of such animals draw attention whenever they’re encountered. Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, which was not covered by glacial ice, has produced scattered bones of mammoths and mastodons, including some in La Crosse County (see links below).

Some boys found the Boaz Mastodon in 1897 after heavy rains uncovered the enormous bones on their farm, near the town of Boaz in Richland County, Wisconsin. The bones were recovered and taken to UW- Madison, where they and bones from other mastodons (especially those from nearby Anderson Mills) were used to create the composite mastodon that’s on display today. The Boaz bones have now been dated to about 12,000 years ago, and recent detective work has shed light on the display’s fascinating history: https://archive.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/researcher-unravels-century--old-wooly-tale-to-find-truth-behind-legendary-massive-bones-b99502786z1-304635421.html.

The presence--and probable association--of a stone spearpoint with the Boaz bones suggests that human hunters might have played a role in the Boaz Mastodon’s demise (see Palmer and Stoltman reference below). The spearpoint is a Clovis type, with a flute on each side for hafting to an atlatl dart or spear shaft. It was made from a distinctive toolstone called Hixton silicified sandstone, found at quarries in Jackson County, Wisconsin. Clovis points have been associated with other mastodon “kill sites” and are thought to represent the earliest widespread presence of humans across the Americas, south of the melting glacial ice masses to the north. The brief, continent-wide appearance of Clovis points around the time when mastodons disappeared have led to suggestions that hunting, along with climate change, might have led to the extinction of these low-density mammals. In any case, the Boaz find and the spearpoint found nearby hold a special interest for paleontologists and archaeologists alike.  

Palmer, Harris A and James B. Stoltman 1976 The Boaz Mastodon: A Possible Association of Man and Mastodon in Wisconsin.

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 1 (2):163-177. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20707793 )

Mammoths and Mastodons – Video            https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/educators/archaeology-terms/?letter=m&term=164813

Mastodons and Mammoths                https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/educators/archaeology-terms/?letter=m&term=125931

Mastodon Ulna                                   https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/educators/archaeology-terms/?letter=m&term=125929

Chipmunk Coulee – Mastodon Tooth https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/past-cultures/specific-sites/site-snippets/?letter=c&term=126833

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MVAC Senior Research Associate Dr. Connie Arzigian describes manos and metates, grinding stones agricultural populations in North America would have used to prepare maize crops. She shows how Indigenous peoples would have used these tools and explains the patterns of grinding, polish, and other wear that tell archaeologists they were used to mill or crush materials like maize.

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Bill Gresens’ Archaeology Book Review for April 2026

Hieroglyphs and Homicide by Tracy Higley (4/4 trowels)

Dr. Clarissa Bell, recent Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Cambridge, finds danger and intrigue as well as ancient artifacts in 1923 Egypt.

Read the entire review at:  https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/book-reviews/?review=362115

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Samuel’s Cave is a naturally-formed rockshelter containing prehistoric petroglyphs (carvings) and pictographs (paintings) that probably date to the Oneota occupation of the La Crosse area, (ca. 1300 to 1600 A.D.).  Weather damage and vandalism have obliterated many but not all of the prehistoric figures.  This pictographic panel possibly portrays in abstract form, a variety of animal forms.

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Seeds are recovered through flotation of archaeological sediments. Although charred, ancient seeds are still identifiable by comparison to modern seeds. Fruits can include blackberries, cherries, blueberries, grape, and sumac. Greens were harvested from wild plants, and goosefoot may have been grown for both greens and seeds.  Pictured is a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) photograph of a blackberry seed recovered from an archaeological site. Although charred, the seed's distinctive features remain so that the seed can be identified.

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Chamber pots were used for indoor toilet needs. These two annular ware pearlware chamber pots were excavated at a historic site in Prairie du Chien and date to circa 1830. They were reconstructed after excavation, and one handle and both covers are missing. The banding on the pots is what is called annular ware design, and the main decoration is a seaweed pattern.

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MVAC Senior Research Associate Dr. Connie Arzigian talks about iron oxide nodules. These concretions form where there are iron concentrations in the soil. They are much denser than other rocks, are sometimes shiny, and can be magnetic. Iron nodules form naturally, but people in the past did at times use them for various purposes such as the paint pot featured here.