Archaeology Field School in Trempealeau — The North Star Reports, sponsored by The Middle Ground Journal. By Lee Bongey

Archaeology Field School in Trempealeau — The North Star Reports, sponsored by The Middle Ground Journal. By Lee Bongey

Hello, my name is Lee and I am an Anthropology and Linguistics double major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I have just begun my third week of an archaeology field school in Trempealeau, Wisconsin. We have been excavating a Native American platform mound to learn about a group of people that archaeologists call Middle Mississippians. Middle Mississippian culture flourished in their home city of Cahokia (located by modern-day St. Louis, Missouri) from 1050-1250 C.E. Middle Mississippians traveled from Cahokia almost 530 miles up the Mississippi River to Trempealeau, so what we’re hoping to find out through the excavations in Trempealeau is why the Middle Mississippians came and why they left.

I have never been on an archaeology dig before, so it’s fascinating to see the procedures involved when excavating. We…