Prehistoric Minnesota

Introduction

You don’t have to be Indiana Jones to be an archaeologist, and you don’t have to be Marty McFly to travel back in time. Minnesota is rich with its own treasures from ancient past, with sites across the state that tell the story of American Indian and European settlement in the region.

No one knows who were the first people to live in the area that is now Minnesota. But it is certain that people have lived here for a very long time, probably thousands of years.

Not long after the last great glacier melted away northward, certain Stone Age hunters, probably from what is now Asia, found their way into what is now Minnesota. The records they left are few, but very important: namely, a human skeleton, rock carvings and paintings, and scattered pieces of beautifully  chipped stone points and tools.