MVAC Home

1980s t-shirt This vintage t-shirt dates to the early 1980s, when MVAC and UW-La Crosse undertook extensive excavations in the Sand Lake Coulee area of Onalaska, northeast of La Crosse. This large, late precontact Oneota site had tens of acres of agricultural ridged fields constructed in the dark, rich soils of a trapped floodplain. Some ridges were buried under sediment that washed down from adjacent slopes—with ridges rebuilt in the accumulating sediments. The area now has a golf course and housing developments.  Link to more information about the Sand Lake ridged fields.