Welcome to Spring Lake Archaeology
Posted by Ed Fleming on Sunday, April 18
Welcome! This blog is about an exciting new archaeological research project by the Science Museum of Minnesota. The project involves the region around Spring Lake, a bend in the Mississippi River just south of the Twin Cities metro area and a riverine lake that was formed when the Hastings Dam caused the flooding of the area in the 1930s.
Before Euro-Americans settled in this area, the ancestors of American Indian people of the Midwest lived in numerous settlements along the bluffs that overlook what used to be a large marsh along the Mississippi River. This was an area rich in animal and plant resources. Glacial outwash terraces rim the large marsh and what was a much smaller Spring Lake - a lake that was originally separated from the channel of the Mississippi. Spring Lake has its name for the many freshwater springs that flow out of the bluffs. This was a place just below the great gorge in the Mississippi that extends from Minneapolis to St. Paul, just below the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, a place where the Mississippi River changes from a relatively small northern river to one of the largest water-ways of the continent.
In short, Spring Lake was an ideal place to live either in long-term villages or in temporary camp sites. The river in this area offered plenty of resources and convenient transportation and communication with communities to the north and south. Plus, this was near the border between deciduous forests and the prairies to the west.
We know a little about the archaeology of Spring Lake from the surveys and excavations conducted by the Science Museum of Minnesota in the 1950s. We also know from this early work that there is considerably more to learn about the early inhabitants of this area. This blog will take you along on our journey to learn more.
If you live in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area, you should see this as a study into the ancient history of a dynamic landscape that is a part of your everyday life. If you are tuning in from further afield, you will see this as an exploration into the rich history of one of the greatest rivers in the world. In the coming weeks, I will be posting regularly about the current scientific investigation of the archaeology of this fascinating region and about how the processes of modern archaeology can help us learn about and understand the past.
