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Explore the Anaem Omot with Dartmouth Archaeology Team

Watch as researches uncover evidence of ancient Menominee agricultural practices

Author

Mark Doremus
August 13, 2025

Graduate student researchers document an excavated garden bed that shows how ancient Menominee Indians raised corn and other crops in an inhospitable climate.

The Menominee Tribe’s historic connection to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula burst into the headlines recently when Dartmouth College researchers announced a surprising discovery north of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The Dartmouth archaeologists revealed that ancient garden beds at the tribe’s Anaem Omot cultural site were far more extensive than previously thought.

“It just blew us away,” said Prof. Madeleine McLeester, the Dartmouth professor who was a key member of the research team. “We’ve excavated only a handful of ridges, and there are thousands of them.”

The unexpected extent of the garden beds was revealed by an aerial survey using laser-enabled 3-D mapping technology.

The findings affirm the Menominee’s oral history of continuous occupation of the Anaem Omot (“Dog’s Belly) location for thousands of years, until the tribe was removed to a reservation in Wisconsin in 1854.

Prof. McLeester and student researchers came back to the Anaem Omot location for more fieldwork in late June. They allowed journalist Mark Doremus to make a record of their painstaking investigation of a research site near the Menominee River.