The Cardy Site in

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Sturgeon Bay is a city in Door County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. The population was 9,646 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located at the bay of Sturgeon Bay for which it is named, it is the most populous city o ...

is a Paleo-Indian campsite, and the oldest known archaeology site on the

Door Peninsula The Door Peninsula is a peninsula in eastern Wisconsin, separating the southern part of the Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The peninsula includes northern Kewaunee County, northeastern Brown County, and the mainland portion of Door Count ...

. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2010.

History

Around 11,000 years ago, just at the end of the last ice age, migrating

Paleo-Indian Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period. The prefix ''paleo-'' comes from . The term ''Paleo-Indians'' applies specifically to the lithic period in ...

hunters camped at this site, probably following large game in the tundra-like zone near the retreating glacier. At this location they chipped

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

brought from as far as

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in the 2020 census, it is the largest city in Rock Island County and the List of municipalities in Illinois, ninth-most populous in Illinois outside ...

into fluted points and other tools. In 1878 the Cardy family began farming that spot, and began turning up chipped stone implements. In the 1950s a young Daniel Cardy, studying at UW-Madison, realized that the points the family found looked like

Clovis points Clovis points are the characteristically fluted projectile points associated with the New World Clovis culture, a prehistoric Paleo-American culture. They are present in dense concentrations across much of North America and they are largely restr ...

. Archaeologists at Madison told him this was unlikely, since Door County was still covered by an ice sheet at the time of the

Clovis culture The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture from the Paleoindian period of North America, spanning around 13,050 to 12,750 years Before Present (BP). The type site is Blackwater Draw locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, where stone too ...

. In 2003 archaeologists excavated sample pits the Cardy property, turning up more chipped stone tools and discarded flakes. The tools had Gainey points, closely related to Clovis, placing their creation around 9000 BCE. As the city of Sturgeon Bay expanded, part of the site was developed and due to the disturbance of the soil is no longer considered useful for archeological research. The remaining, undeveloped portion of the site was protected by the Cardy family beginning in 1960, added to the

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

State Register of Historic Places in 2009, and today belongs to

The Archaeological Conservancy The Archaeological Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that acquires and preserves archaeological sites in the United States. Whereas nearly every other nation protects all archaeological sites within its borders as part of its nati ...

. It is open to the public and listed as a point of interest near the

Ice Age Trail The Ice Age Trail is a National Scenic Trail stretching in the state of Wisconsin in the United States. The trail is administered by the National Park Service, and is constructed and maintained by private and public agencies including the Ice ...

.Ice Age Trail Guidebook 2014
Points of interest: Cardy Paleo-Indian Camp Archaeological Site, p. 353 (p. 6 of the pdf)

References

{{reflist Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Protected areas of Door County, Wisconsin Native American history of Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Door County, Wisconsin

History

Further reading

References