<< Our Photo Pages >> Aztalan State Park - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in Great Lakes Midwest
Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 31 March 2013 Page Views: 6682
Multi-periodSite Name: Aztalan State ParkCountry: United States
NOTE: This site is 8.263 km away from the location you searched for.
Region: Great Lakes Midwest Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Lake Mills, WI
Latitude: 43.065555N Longitude: 88.862777W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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I have visited· I would like to visit
bat400 visited on 1st Jul 2010 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 4 A Cahokia in miniature. Site interpretation is quite good considering that the park is not monitored for much of its opening times (basically dawn to dusk, daily.) At the parking area, a brief guide to the site is available at an honesty box. Placards around the site describe the ruins and reconstructions visible, as well as archaeological findings.
When I visited (late in the day on a Sunday) the small museum was unmanned.
Ahdzib have visited here
Group of mounds of the Mississippian Culture, in Aztalan State Park, Wisconsin. The mounds were made between 11th and 13th century CE, although the site was originally occupied by an earlier culture, around 900CE.
The first occupation of the site was around 900 CE by Late Woodland Culture people who made their living by hunting and gathering with some corn production. They built oval based bent pole houses, covered with woven mats on the west side of the Crawfish River, but may also have been the builders of two small earthen enclosures on the east bank of the river. Effigy mounds on nearby hilltops and a cemetery approximately a mile away may have also been the work of these people.
After 100 years, the village was completely reconfigured with the building of three large platform mounds and the clearing of plaza areas. These structures and a surrounding stockade, finished in wattle and daub, date to approximately 1060 CE. Multiple artifacts point to a colonization of Aztalan by people from Cahokia. Artifact evidence, aside from the substantial public architecture, includes tools and pottery conforming to Cahokia styles, but made from local materials, and strontium analysis of human skeletal material found at Aztalan, but having the signature of someone who would have been born and raised at Cahokia, 500 km to the south. The house styles of this period also resemble those found at Cahokia, with a circular floor and a single center pole.
The site was abandoned shortly after 1200 CE. There is evidence of a substantial fire at multiple locations, but it is difficult to say whether this was due to conflict or whether it was a method of "closing down" a trading colony or missionary effort which had come to an end.
When the site was first described by European Americans in the 1830's, portions of the stockade could still be seen, and the remains of burned wattle and daub was described as "Aztalan brick" and excavated for use as a building material.
Sources:
Lapham, Increase Allen, 1811-1875. "ANCIENT WORKS AT AND IN THE VICINITY OF AZTALAN" The antiquities of Wisconsin. Washington : Smithsonian Institution, 1855.
Price TD, Burton JH, and Stoltman JB. 2007. Place of Origin of Prehistoric Inhabitants of Aztalan, Jefferson Co., Wisconsin. American Antiquity 72(3):524-538.
National Historic Landmark website listing.
Wisconsin's State Park website for Aztalan.
Freinds of Aztalan State Park website.
With thanks to DurhamNature for additional info.
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