Raised Beds, Elevated Conversation

This fortnight, get ready to learn about pre-Contact Indigenous agriculture that was much, MUCH more widespread than previously thought. Maddie McLeester (Dartmouth College) joins us to describe using LiDAR to identify extensive raised bed farming in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This work, recently published in Science, suggests a ubiquity of Indigenous farming that was previously unrealized. Maddie also chats about her course on Indigenous games.

Show notes:

• McLeester, Madeleine, Carolin Ferwerda, Jonathan Alperstein, David Overstreet, David Grignon, and Jesse Casana. 2025. "Archaeological evidence of intensive indigenous farming in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, USA." Science 388 (6751): 1082-1085. https://doi.org/doi:10.1126/science.ads1643. https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.ads1643.
  • Open Access link
• NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/science/archaeology-menomini-michigan.html?smid=url-share
• NPR Article: https://www.npr.org/2025/06/06/nx-s1-5423660/surprise-ancient-native-american-agriculture
• Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/podcast/farming-maize-ice-age-michigan-predicting-future-climate-cities-and-our-host-takes-quiz
• DeBoer, Warren R. “Of Dice and Women: Gambling and Exchange in Native North America.” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8, no. 3 (2001): 215–68.
• Book 1491: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus

Credits:

Sponsors: APANB, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

Producer: Emanuel Akel LinkedIn

Music Credits: Justin Hoenke (Title/Hit Pieces) and Shayne Dahl (Hakuna Errata)