Wisconsin’s state historians have announced an intriguing find beneath Lake Mendota: a hidden stash of aged canoes, one of which is older than the Great Pyramid of Giza.
This month, the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) revealed that experts have catalogued 14 dugout canoes submerged in the lake, with six of those discovered in the current spring season. The WHS collaborated closely with Wisconsin’s First Nations during the investigation, as noted in their statement.
Earlier excavations had already produced a 1,200‑year‑old dugout in 2021 and a 3,000‑year‑old specimen in 2022. Cumulatively, the oldest vessel dates back roughly 5,200 years, while the newest dates to the 14th century A.D. According to the WHS, these boats were used for fishing, travel, and trade.
“The landscape around Madison lakes looked very different before European settlers arrived in the area and conducted terraforming to suit modern transportation, with large bluffs that made traveling over the land difficult in some areas,” the statement added.
The archived images show the discovered canoes: a 14‑canoe count for Lake Mendota and an underwater view of a red oak canoe.
“The canyon travel may have been more efficient for certain routes for the communities who lived in the area spanning thousands of years before Wisconsin became a state,” the report also said.
Maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen explained to Fox News Digital that the canoes survived due to being buried under the lake’s sediment for countless generations.
“The canoes have all been found eroding from a bank underwater, in about 25 feet of water,” she told the outlet. “They survived because they remained buried for so many millennia.”
Thomsen clarified that there are no plans yet to recover the 14 canoes that still rest below the surface. However, the two dugouts already recovered are slated for a museum exhibit at the Wisconsin History Center in 2027.
“The oldest Lake Mendota canoe identified to date was likely crafted sometime around 3000 B.C., before the Great Pyramid of Giza was built in Egypt, and around the time of the invention of writing in Sumer,” she added.
“This was constructed of red oak, it is now the oldest dugout canoe recorded from the Great Lakes region and the third oldest in eastern North America.”
Such a concentration of ancient vessels is rare in the Midwest; similar discoveries are more frequently reported in the Southeast.
“The cache is rare in the Midwest, as such discoveries are more common in the Southeast,” the archaeologist noted.
“The boats are believed to be over 5,000 years old.”
“This is the only cache of canoes that has so far been discovered in Wisconsin,” she said.
The WHS noted that the canoes were made from either red or white oak—an uncommon selection given the trees’ tendency to absorb water. Thomsen speculated that the builders may have chosen damaged trees or deliberately harmed them to influence growth patterns.
“We think of bioengineering as a modern practice, but the samples we have suggest this may have been taking place long before the term was coined in the mid‑20th century,” she said.
“Archaeology is kind of like putting together pieces of a puzzle, and the more pieces you can find, the better you can start to form a picture of what was going on and why during a period of history,” Thomsen added.
Bill Quackenbush, a tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho‑Chunk Nation, said the project “gives us a meaningful opportunity to gain a deeper perspective on our heritage and our ancestors.”
He added, “It is important that we document and share these stories, so that our youth feel that connection to our past.”
“Protecting and preserving this knowledge ensures that the next generation understands where we come from and why these stories matter. That is why we share them and continue this work.”
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