1960’s Excavations at Aztalan

The late Joan Freeman, former archeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society, conducted extensive excavations at the site of Aztalan for several seasons in the 1960’s. Most of the work concentrated on the main habitation area along the Crawfish River. The remains of the northeast platform mound was the focus of Joan’s work. While Dr. Freeman did not publish much on her work, UW-Millwaukee student Thomas Zyck wrote his fascinating Master’s thesis on this mound. Today, it takes a keen eye to see some of the mound, which severely damaged by decades of farming activity. Surprisingly, much of the mound remains intact below the surface.

The movie attached here provides an interesting view of Dr. Freeman’s work on the north side of the mound. The movie was shot by then postmaster at Trempealeau, Wisconsin, the late Ken Wagner, who spend a few days documenting the excavations. The movie provides interesting insights into the park, the archeologists who lived and worked there, and the excavations of the Northeast mound. This movie was digitized by Robert “Ernie” Boszhardt, who graciously share this valuable archive on work at the site of Aztalan,

https://youtu.be/-nYpRXekGEs?si=3xNGH32Z6NlLeMUu

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