Fifty miles west of Milwaukee stands the ruins of Aztalan, a large town with mounds that seemed far more characteristic of the lower Mississippi River Valley. The early Europeans settlers thought the site resembled Aztec ruins in Mexico, and therefore named it Aztalan. It became a major part of the mound builders mythology of the 19th century.
Lynne Goldstein, an archaeologist at Michigan State University, and former state archaeologist Bob Birmingham have produced a delightful little book that tells the story of Aztalan, and how archaeologists in the 20th century cracked its mysterious legacy. It is in fact a large Mississippian center that looks more like Cahokia near St. Louis than anything in Wisconsin. It seems that some of the Cahokians migrated to Aztalan around A.D. 1100 and built a new ceremonial center. We may never know why they did it. They stayed at Aztalan for 150 years and then disappeared.
Today Aztalan is preserved as a state park that is open to the public. Research continues to define the extent of the town and its sphere of influence in the upper Midwest. —Mark Michel
