A second ancient canoe is found in Wisconsin -- this time tracing back to 1000 B.C.

[Jilly_in_VA]

Tamara Thomsen was giving a scuba diving lesson in Wisconsin's Lake Mendota when she noticed a piece of wood peeking out of the sand. Her student didn't think much of it but Thomsen, who is a maritime archaeologist by trade, knew exactly what it was.

"This is not a joke. I found another dugout canoe," she texted her boss.

The boat discovered in May was the second artifact Thomsen accidentally stumbled upon within the past year. In November 2021, Thomsen spotted a 1,200-year-old canoe while swimming in the same lake during her day off.

Archaeologists from the Wisconsin Historical Society — where Thomsen works — determined that the most recent find is even older — about 3,000 years old, the group announced on Thursday.

Thomsen said that when the radiocarbon dating results from came back, she wrote "1000 B.C." on a Post-it note and stared in disbelief.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/24/1124817721/3000-year-old-canoe-found-wisconsin

I grew up near the shores of Lake Mendota, in Madison, so this is of great interest to me

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. Cool story.

Members of indigenous tribes helped in the recovery.

[Tetrachloride]

2. I visited Eagle Heights when there were only 100s

[Martin68]

3. The canoe must have been preserved at hypoxic depths and maybe revealed due to storms and

wave action.

[wnylib]

6. It's the preservation that surprised me.

It's not surprising that people were living there at the time. We already knew as much. There is evidence of copper mining in Michigan and Wisconsin and the larger Great Lakes region 10,000 years ago.

https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-native-americans-were-among-world-s-first-coppersmiths

These canoes have significance for the Native people of the region. But I am curious about the conditions that preserved the canoes.

[Martin68]

7. If the canoe sank in very deep water where no sunlight reaches and there is no oxygen at the

bottom, it will not decay. Old growth forest logs that were harvested 150 years ago and towed down the lake by tugboat to a saw mill, sometimes broke free, got waterlogged, and sank. They are still there at the bottom and are very valuable.

[PJMcK]

4. As a kid...

…I swan in Lake Mendota a bunch of times. It was many years ago but I remember it being beautiful!

[Jilly_in_VA]

8. Me too

Willows Beach, which is probably now closed.

[pansypoo53219]

5. 3 dug outs. need to scour that lake yearly i think.