This is the story of one of America’s richest archaeological locales in the beautiful Mississippi River Valley from Rock Island, Illinois to Minneapolis. Authors Theler and Boszhardt of the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center at the University of Wisconsin—La Crosse have each spent more than 20 years studying the archaeology of this diverse and bountiful region.
The first inhabitants of the region co-existed with woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats. Later came the Woodland people who built thousands of burial mounds, most of which have been destroyed by modern agricultural practices. The Late Woodland people built thousands more mounds in the shape of animals—bears, birds, wolves, and others, the best preserved of which are at Effigy Mounds National Monument. With the arrival of corn agriculture, the native people became intensive farmers who supplemented their diet with annual buffalo hunts. Finally, Europeans arrived in the 16th century.
Theler and Boszhardt write for the general public. Well illustrated with plenty of maps and diagrams, Twelve Millennia is an outstanding regional archaeological survey.
