Case file · Sacred site
Aztalan
Around 1100 Mississippian people, probably with ties to Cahokia, built a palisaded town with flat-topped platform mounds at Aztalan on the Crawfish River in Wisconsin; it was abandoned about 1250.
1100 CE · 43.07, -88.86 · status: official
The account
Early settlers named it after the legendary Aztec homeland, thinking Aztecs had built it.
The sceptical view
The 'Aztec' name reflects 19th-century guesswork; the builders were local Mississippian people.