A Trip To This Little-Known Ancient Ruin In Wisconsin Is Truly One In A Million
By Ben Jones|Published September 04, 2021
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Ben Jones
Author
Ben Jones is at heart an adventurer who delights in inspiring others. A former reporter and photojournalist, he explored towns large and small as a Wisconsin correspondent for USA Today. He later became a lead photographer and senior copywriter for an award-winning destination marketing agency, before founding Boldland Creative, a company that produces photography, video, and other content for travel destinations. Jones has completed photography and content projects in more than 15 states and when he’s not looking through a camera or at his Macbook you’ll find him exploring the world’s lakes and forests.
Long before Europeans arrived in Wisconsin, a large settlement flourished by a river in south-central Wisconsin. It existed for hundreds of years but for some reason, it disappeared. Aztalan State Park is a place of wonder and mystery and it’s a place that offers an incredible hike through time. Here’s what you need to know about Aztalan State Park.
The park is located east of Lake Mills and is an easy drive from Milwaukee and Madison. Wear good walking shoes because this is a place you’ll want to explore on foot. It's a tranquil site without many amenities and that's part of its charm - it's a quiet and mysterious place.
There are interpretive signs located throughout the park that details the story of the site. If you would like to learn more and see some interesting artifacts you can head to a small museum located near the park on Highway Q.
In modern times, the first person to discover the site was a man named Timothy Johnson, who came here in 1835. He was amazed to see a place of large pyramids and massive stockades.
The people who lived at the site were part of a culture known as the Middle Mississippian tradition. The site was inhabited from 900-1300 CE and the residents had long-distance trading relationships with other settlements. Archaeologists have found copper from Michigan's Upper Peninsula and shells from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico at the site.
While Europeans that followed partially destroyed the site, looting artifacts and plowing over the pyramids for farming, eventually a stockade area was preserved. You can visit it today, along with large, flat-topped pyramidal mounds.
No one is exactly sure why the site was abandoned, but it’s possible that warfare with other cultures led to the abandonment, or perhaps the people who lived at Aztalan simply outgrew its resources. In any event, it’s a place that still holds wonder and offers lessons about past residents of this area.
Aztalan State Park is a National Historic Landmark and is considered one of Wisconsin’s most important archaeological sites. It’s open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. A vehicle admission sticker is required. Wisconsin has a lot of interesting ruins on public land. North of Madison, there’s an eerie place that’s waiting to be explored.
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