Early Inhabitants (« Prev | Next »)
The first people to settle the La Crosse region, the Paleo-Indians, came following herds of mammoth at the end of the last Ice Age. Primarily nomadic, the Paleo-Indians (ca. 10,000 - 8,000 B.C.) subsisted mainly by hunting and tracking big game. Overhunting and the end of the last Ice Age both contributed to the extinction of large mammals. Lacking these major food sources, people shifted to the now more abundant plant life while continuing to hunt smaller mammals such as deer, elk and bison. This transition constituted the beginning of the Archaic period (ca. 8,000 B.C. – 1 A.D.) The melting ice allowed for new aquatic resources to also be utilized by the Archaic inhabitants. As people became semi-settled, they began to employ horticulture to supplement their diet. Due to the more stable lifestyle, these Woodland people (ca. 1 – 1200 A.D.) could now partake in cultural development activities, such as mound building and pottery.
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