While a student at the University of Wisconsin, Frederick Jackson Turner, excavated a burial mound in Wisconsin in 1886. Best known later for his “frontier thesis,” Turner suggested the skeletal remains might be those of a mound builder, a vanished race that preceded the American Indians. Following the excavation, Turner, a pioneer in interdisciplinary historical research, immersed himself in the limited Midwest archaeological literature of the day and probably came to accept the Native Americans as the makers of the mounds. While his dig remained a one-time event, Turner's interest in archaeology continued in the years to follow.
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