Mackinac Island Archaeology: What the Digs Have Found

Walk up to Fort Mackinac, stand on the parade ground, and you are standing on a very deep pile of other people’s lives. The island has been settled, fought over, and traded through for thousands of years, and almost none of that story was written down. What we know about the earliest chapters comes out of the ground instead, one broken plate and one animal bone at a time. Digging in the Straits of Mackinac has gone on so steadily, and for so long, that it has become part of what the region is known for.

This is a subject that rewards a little reading before your trip. Once you know what the diggers have pulled out of the soil here, the forts and museums stop looking like tidy displays and start looking like the end of a long, patient process. Here is what has been found, where the work happens, and how you can see it for yourself.

One of the Country’s Longest-Running Digs Sits Across the Water

The best-known archaeological project in the Straits is at Colonial Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City, across the water from Mackinac Island. The reconstructed fort and fur-trading village stands near the Mackinac Bridge. Professional excavation began in 1959 and has continued every summer since, making it one of the longest ongoing archaeological projects of its kind in the United States. Decades of careful work have helped researchers interpret life throughout the Straits, including related discoveries on Mackinac Island.

How the Work Began

The project started when the Mackinac Island State Park Commission brought in Michigan State University to run a season of digging in 1959. The goal was to find the footprints of the old buildings so the fort could be rebuilt on the right lines, and it worked. Much of the west half of the fort was dug and rebuilt through the 1960s, and by the end of that decade there was enough work to justify a full-time staff archaeologist. The crews moved outside the walls in the early 1970s and found three rowhouses in the old suburb while preparing ground for a visitor center. Each of those steps added another layer to a program that has never paused.

What Comes Out of the Ground Now

Roughly two-thirds of the fort has been dug so far, and more than a million objects have been recovered and recorded. Recent seasons have focused on a rowhouse cellar, and the finds are the small household things that tell you how people really lived: a brass button crown, a jaw harp, the jawbone of a young pig, and heaps of eggshell. One season turned up something odd, a scrap of cloth about an inch wide with fine copper or brass wire woven through it. Cloth almost never survives two and a half centuries in Michigan soil, but as the metal rusted it released copper salts that saved the fibers around it. Finds like that are why the crew keeps coming back.

What Has Been Found on Mackinac Island Itself

The island has its own dig history, quieter but just as telling. Work here has usually been tied to a building or repair project, which is the normal rhythm at a historic site: someone needs to run a utility line or rebuild a foundation, and the dig crew goes first. The results have filled museum cases across the island and changed how guides tell the story. Two sites have produced most of the material visitors end up seeing.

The Biddle House Privy

In 1972, archaeologists excavated an older privy beside the Biddle House. Evidence indicates that it was used from the early 1820s into the 1840s. Edward and Agatha Biddle purchased the house in the mid-1820s and moved in around 1830, so the deposit includes material from the early years of their residence. Archaeologists identified at least fifty-seven mendable ceramic vessels, several styles of wine glass, and fragments of two birchbark containers. The birchbark pieces reflect Agatha Biddle’s continuing connection to her Anishnaabek heritage, while the imported ceramics reveal the household’s commercial ties. Visitors can see selected finds at the historic Biddle House, now home to the Mackinac Island Native American Museum.

Fort Mackinac’s Buried Everyday Life

At Fort Mackinac, archaeology has documented structures and everyday objects that disappeared while the post was active. British soldiers dug the original well during construction of the fort beginning in 1780. Archaeologists tested it in 1965 and excavated it more fully in 1980 and 1981. Later work connected with wall repairs uncovered a nineteenth-century drainage system beneath the parade ground. Excavations have also examined the Provision Storehouse, East Blockhouse, blacksmith shops, Officers’ Wood Quarters, and military refuse areas. Objects such as ceramics, glass, buttons, tools, shoe parts, and coins help explain daily military life beyond what survives in official records. These discoveries add useful context to a visit to Fort Mackinac.

The Island’s Oldest Layers

Archaeology also documents life on Mackinac Island long before European settlement. A village site near today’s Marquette Park, called Getewaaking by researchers, was used seasonally from about A.D. 500 to 1600. Excavations recovered pottery, chert projectile points and scrapers, copper beads and tools, and animal remains showing seasonal fishing and hunting. Another unusual discovery is a walrus skull fragment reportedly recovered from a Mackinac Island beach deposit. Radiocarbon testing dated it to roughly 975 years before present, and researchers have suggested that people transported it inland through long-distance exchange. For a broader view, read about the island’s Native American history and the limestone geology that influenced settlement.

Where to See the Artifacts

You do not need a shovel to get close to this material. Fort Mackinac’s post museum shows dug-up objects next to documents and uniforms, arranged so you can see how a find ties back to a specific room or moment. The Biddle House holds the privy finds and tells the story through Agatha Biddle’s family. Downtown, the art museum and the other history museums round out the picture with objects that came from island soil. Over in Mackinaw City, Colonial Michilimackinac keeps a whole exhibit of finds, and during the summer season you can stand at the edge of the open pits and watch the crew work. The island’s museums and history displays make an easy afternoon, and they mean far more once you know where the objects came from.

Why You Cannot Go Digging Yourself

It is worth being clear about this, because the temptation is real when you are standing on ground this rich. Mackinac Island State Park rules ban metal detectors and any digging without permission, and taking historic material out of the ground is not allowed. The reason is simple and has nothing to do with red tape. An object pulled up by a visitor loses the one thing that makes it useful, which is its exact spot in relation to everything around it. A button in a labelled bag from a recorded layer can date a whole building, while the same button in a pocket is just a button. If something does work its way up on a trail after heavy rain, leave it where it lies and tell park staff.

Making It Part of Your Visit

All of this is easy to fold into a normal trip without turning your vacation into a lecture. Give the fort’s museum a slow hour instead of a quick lap, ask a guide what has come out of the ground nearby, and set aside a half day for the Biddle House and the downtown museums. If you can spare a morning on the mainland in summer, the open dig at Colonial Michilimackinac is one of the few places in the country where you can watch this work as it happens. Dig season dates and museum hours shift from year to year, so check the current schedule with Mackinac State Historic Parks as you plan. The whole subject also gives kids a reason to look twice at buildings they would otherwise breeze past.

Conclusion

The best part of digging into the island’s past is how short the walk is between the exhibits, the forts, and your own front door. Inn on Mackinac sits right in the middle of that, a few minutes from the museums downtown and the path up to Fort Mackinac, so you can follow a thread of island history all day and still be back for a quiet evening on the porch. When you are ready to see what the diggers have uncovered, book your stay with Inn on Mackinac and make the island’s long story part of your trip.

Category: Mackinac Island