Four years after discovering a 1,200-year-old dugout canoe in Lake Mendota, archaeologists with the Wisconsin Historical Society and regional First Nations continue to uncover new details from one of the most significant underwater archaeological sites in the Great Lakes.
Since retrieving the first canoe in 2021 and a second—estimated at 3,000 years old—in 2022, researchers have identified 14 additional ancient canoes still submerged in the lakebed. Six of those were found in the spring of 2025. As preservation work on the two recovered vessels nears completion, investigators are developing new theories about the site’s cultural history and the canoe builders who used Mendota’s waters for thousands of years.
Tamara Thomsen, a Wisconsin Historical Society maritime archaeologist, has led the search for additional canoes in partnership with First Nations, University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Sissel Schroeder and the USDA Forest Products Laboratory. To date, Thomsen’s team has mapped the locations of all 16 known canoes and identified the tree species used in their construction…