During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over 450 precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields were documented across the state of Wisconsin. Today, the vast majority of these features are generally assumed to have been destroyed. Focusing on the Wisconsin River basin, which has the highest concentration of known archaeological field systems in the Midwest, this study explores the potential of using historical aerial photographs to identify and interpret archaeological agricultural features. Relying on state site records, an archive of high-resolution 1930s aerial images, and modern lidar data, we carefully examine the region surrounding 59 sites where fields had previously been documented. At a quarter of the sites we investigated, we successfully identified both known and unrecorded archaeological features—including agricultural fields, effigy mounds, earthworks, and house basins—most of which have been destroyed by recent land use practices. Our analysis sheds light on the complexity and richness of the archaeological landscape, with vast agricultural spaces situated beyond traditional site boundaries, and suggests that precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields may have been much larger and more widespread than conventionally understood.

在19世纪末和20世纪初，在威斯康星州记录了450多个哥伦比亚前和历史悠久的土著农田。如今，通常假定这些功能中的绝大多数已被破坏。重点研究威斯康星州流域，该流域是中西部已知考古现场系统的最高集中地，该研究探索了使用历史航拍照片识别和解释考古农业特征的潜力。依靠国家现场记录，高分辨率的1930年代航拍影像档案和现代激光雷达数据，我们仔细检查了59个现场的先前记录区域。在我们调查的站点的四分之一中，我们成功地确定了已知的和未记录的考古特征，包括农田，雕像丘，土方工程和房屋盆地，其中大多数已被最近的土地使用习惯所破坏。我们的分析揭示了考古景观的复杂性和丰富性，广阔的农业空间位于传统遗址的边界之外，并表明，前哥伦比亚和历史悠久的土著农田可能比传统上理解的更大，更广泛。