Paleoindian
At least 13,000 years ago
Picture a frigid Wisconsin that looks more like the sub-Arctic Boreal forest. At times, ice sheets up to two miles thick crept across the land. In this environment, the first people of Wisconsin traveled in small groups. They hunted megafauna like mastodon and 500-pound beaver - but also game like deer and caribou. Today, little remains of their stories except the sharp stone tools they crafted.
The Paleoindian period, beginning at least 13,000 years ago, marks the arrival of the first humans in North America. Paleolithic hunters from Eurasia were most likely following herds of big game, mammoths and mastodons, when they entered this vast new frontier. Within a thousand years or so they had spread throughout most of modern-day United States. These nomadic people probably lived in small family groups hunting, fishing and foraging.
