Precolonial farmers thrived in one of North America’s coldest places

A laser eye-in-the-sky has uncovered vast, ancient farm fields in an unlikely place — the frosty forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Ancestors of present-day Menominee people, a federally recognized Native American tribe, grew maize and other crops in densely clustered earthen ridges from around 1,000 to 400 years ago, researchers report in the June 5 Science.

After clearing trees from large tracts of land, mobile communities accomplished this agricultural feat in the face of cold temperatures unfriendly to maize cultivation, a short growing season and poor soil conditions, say archaeologist Madeleine McLeester and colleagues.

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