We have no written history of life in Wisconsin until the French began exploring the region. In 1634, Jean Nicolet was one of the first to explore the area along the Northwest Lake Michigan shore. He settled in near what is now Green Bay. Marquette and Joliet crossed the state from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River in 1673.
Anything we know of the people who lived here prior to that, we have learned from archeology. We know the first people in North America came across the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age which ended about 14,000 years ago. They gradually spread across the country and were living in all parts of the Americas when the first white explorers arrived here. The first people to live in the Wisconsin area were the Paleo-Indians, who arrived about 12,000 years ago.
The area which is now Wisconsin was home to a number of different groups throughout the centuries. About 2000 years ago, Wisconsin was home to the Woodland culture. There were three Woodland eras; the Early Woodland stage was from about 500-100 BC; the Middle Woodland stage existed from about 100 BC-AD 500; and the Late Woodland stage ran from about AD 500-AD 1300.
The Woodland societies were hunters, gatherers, fishers and gardeners. These people hunted deer, small mammals such as raccoon, muskrat, and beaver, fished a great deal, and gathered wild plants such as hickory nuts, blackberries, and wild rice. They frequently camped along the river valleys where they collected large numbers of freshwater mussels. The dense layers of these discarded shells mark their occupations and are one of the ways archeology knows where and how they lived.
They primarily harvested wild plants, but did plant squash or gourds around their campsites. There is evidence from some places in the state that they cultivated such crops as sumpweed (Annual herb with fibrous roots.), sunflower, and goosefoot (A genus of herbs (Chenopodium) mostly annual weeds; pigweed.).
There are many Early Woodland campsites on islands in the Upper Mississippi River. These campsites include clamshell middens. (A midden is a mound or deposit containing shells, animal bones, and other refuse that indicates the site of a human settlement. Also called kitchen midden.)
During the Early Woodland stage, the first ceramics appeared in the Upper Mississippi Valley. These were crude thick-walled pots. Not long after they were making thin-walled vessels with incised decorations. Projectile points (spear heads) found with these ceramics are straight or contracting stemmed.
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