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This photo made available by Wisconsin Historical Society Maritime Archeologist Tamara Thomsen, shows the remains of an ancient canoe sitting on the bottom of Lake Mendota, in Madison, Wis., in June 2025. (Tamara Thomsen/Wisconsin Historical Society via AP)

MADISON, Wis. – Archaeologists have identified more than a dozen ancient canoes that Indigenous people apparently left behind in a sort of prehistoric parking lot along a Wisconsin lakeshore.

The Wisconsin Historical Society announced Wednesday that archaeologists have mapped the location of 16 canoes submerged in the lake bed of Lake Mendota in Madison. Tamara Thomsen, the state's maritime archaeologist, said that the site lies near a network of what were once indigenous trails, suggesting ancient people left the canoes there

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