The state of Wisconsin is part of the Midwest section of the United States.  Surrounded by Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Lake Michigan and Lake Superior this state is a great travel destination. The capital of Wisconsin in Madison, but the largest city in the state is Milwaukee.  The population of Wisconsin was estimated at 5.6 people in 2008. Over the past 12 thousand years Wisconsin has been home to many different cultures and groups.  During the Wisconsin Glaciation estimated to be about 10000 BCE the first people lived in Wisconsin.  Evidence of these earliest inhabitants has been found in prehistoric skeletons and spear points that were discovered in southwest Wisconsin.

These discoveries helped scientists figure out that the Paleo-Indians hunted ice age animals that are now extinct,like the Boaz mastodon. Around 8000 BCE at once the ice age ended, the Archaic period was characterized by people who hunted, fished and gathered food from plants.  Gradually throughout the Woodland period which is considered the time between 1000 BCE and 1000 CE, agriculture was developed and societies formed around this way of life.  Near the end of the Woodland period Wisconsin was the center of what was known as the “Effigy Mound culture”, when thousands of animal shaped mounds were built all across the state.  Between 1000 and 1500 CE both the Mississippian and Oneota people buitl settlements around the state, including the southeast Wisconsin fortified village of Aztalan.  The Oneota are thought to be ancestors of the modern day Ioway and Ho-Chunk tribes which were in Wisconsin along with the Menominee when Europeans first arrived.  The Europeans who first settled in Wisconsin were exposed to the culture of many tribes including the Ojibwa, Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo and Pottawatomie, that had migrated from eastern stated between 1500 and 1700.

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