MADISON, Wisc.— On Thursday, Sept. 22, the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) recovered a 3,000-year-old dugout canoe from the bottom of a Madison lake with the assistance of two Wisconsin Tribes.
The canoe, recovered from Lake Mendota in downtown Madison, is about 14.5 feet long and carved from a single piece of white oak. According to the WHS, radiocarbon dating analysis performed on the recovered canoe places its origin at 1,000 BC — making it the oldest canoe ever discovered in the Great Lakes region by approximately 1,000 years.
It is the second canoe recovered in the last year from the same lake —last November, the WHS announced that it recovered a canoe that dated 1,200 years old. Both canoes were likely made by ancestors of the Ho-Chunk Nation.
“Finding an additional historically significant canoe in Lake Mendota is truly incredible and unlocks invaluable research and educational opportunities to explore the technological, cultural, and stylistic changes that occurred in dugout canoe design over 3,000 years,” WHS Archaeologist Dr. James Skibo said in a statement. “Since it was located within 100 yards of where the first canoe was found at the bottom of a drop-off in the lakebed, the find has prompted us to research fluctuating water levels and ancient shorelines to explore the possibility that the canoes were near what is now submerged village sites.”
Representatives from the Ho-Chunk Nation and Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa joined the WHS to recover both canoes.