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Researchers Found Unnatural Patterns Beneath an Ancient Forest

created: June 11, 2025, noon | updated: June 16, 2025, 9:15 p.m.

As more of the site is surveyed with LiDAR, it is possible that signs of even more extensive Menominee farming will surface. This is the ancestral land of the Menominee people—an Indigenous tribe who had been farming the area since the 10th century. Sometimes the lack of evidence for what ancient people accomplished robs us of an accurate understanding of what they actually managed to do. There had been previous evidence of ancient Menominee farming in the area, but it was thought that they farmed on a much smaller scale than the newly discovered buried farmland would imply. Evidently, Menominee farming was carried out at a scale that would require sophisticated labor organization—something predominantly seen in larger hierarchical societies.

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