Retracing Detroit's Native American Trails

The most fascinating thing to me about Native American trails isn't just that Detroit was a hub in a continent-wide network of footpaths worn into the earth centuries before Cadillac or Columbus--it's that some of these paths have been preserved as modern roads and highways, and today we can still walk in the footsteps of the civilizations that came before us.


From Archaeological Atlas of Michigan, but Wilbert B. Hinsdale. (Source.)

Other Mounds in Metro Detroit

Although I have yet to discuss "urbanism," I'd like to write a little more about other Native American earthworks once located in Metropolitan Detroit. There were too many to fit into in my last entry, but their stories are an important part of our history.

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Hinsdale's Atlas

The first attempt to document all known Native American archaeological sites in the state was Wilbert Hinsdale's Archaeological Atlas of the State of Michigan in 1931. Accepted informants ranged from historical documents to "hearsay sources." Hinsdale and his collaborators examined claims and visited sites to determine plausibility, and concluded that there had been more than 1,068 mounds and 113 earthworks in Michigan, but that fewer than 5% "have escaped mutilation." Outside of Detroit, the largest earthworks in the state were found in Grand Rapids and Port Huron.