They’re smaller than you’d think. More delicate. Definitely not flashy.
Donald Trump wouldn’t brag about seeing one. But in all the world, there’s
nothing quite like the Indian mounds of North America, built by ancient
peoples who left a legacy of earthen building projects and the mystery of why
they’re there.
There was a time when an estimated 200,000 “earthworks” — that’s the
sophisticated term — marked the land. Only a small fraction has survived the
elements, the looter’s spade, the farmer’s plow, the grind of progress and
preposterous theories of their existence.
As it happens, the highest concentration of the most enduring mounds can be
toured right here in the Midwest. In what is now Ohio, Illinois, Iowa,
Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, prehistoric cultures built mounds shaped like
birds and bears, circles and squares. Some mounds were built along the ridge
line of hilltops; others were shaped into platform pyramids, perfect cones or
avenues of straight lines.
So far as anyone knows, the Mound Builders had no written language; they
speak now only through what may be studied from the artifacts they left
behind. Excavations have revealed sometimes-elaborate burial practices; goods
and raw materials obtainable only through extensive trade routes; even what
the builders ate for dinner. The evidence produces the who and what, the when
and how.
It just doesn’t tell why. Why mounds, especially? Why of earth? Why did
they start building them? Why did they stop?
Those questions may never be answered. But archeologists can say that the
North American earthworks were built by more than one culture and over many
hundreds of years. They have assigned the following names, ballpark dates and
characteristics to the Mound Builders:
Adena culture spanned 800 B.C.-100 A.D. and built large, individual
cone-shaped mounds, some as high as 60 to 70 feet. They’re the ones who left
the 65-foot-high Miamisburg Mound; the suburbs southwest of Dayton, Ohio, have
grown up around it.
Hopewell culture, which has spawned a near cult following among amateur
historians, endured 200 B.C.-500 A.D. and is recognized for its construction
of large geometric earthworks and a trade network that blanketed the eastern
half of North America. The 26-acre Great Circle site at Moundbuilders State
Memorial, which these days finds itself in the middle of Newark, Ohio, is one
of their legacies.
Effigy Mound culture built earthworks 600 A.D.-1250 A.D. and is recognized,
not surprisingly, by the animal-shaped, or effigy, mounds found in what is now
Effigy Mounds National Historical Park, on a succession of bluffs overlooking
the Mississippi River north of Marquette, Iowa.
Mississippian culture developed into a true civilization, reaching its
zenith roughly 1000 A.D.-1400 A.D. at Cahokia, across the Mississippi from St.
Louis, just outside of Collinsville, Ill.
Ft. Ancient culture spanned 900 A.D.-1550 A.D. These people probably were
influenced by the Mississippian culture and built enclosures surrounded by
stockade walls. The term “Ft. Ancient” can be confusing because it was coined
at the site of a hilltop enclosure, now Ohio’s Ft. Ancient State Memorial, 35
miles northeast of Cincinnati. The Ft. Ancient culture at first was given
credit for building the site, but archeologists have since determined that the
place was originally built by the Hopewell and that the Ft. Ancient culture
must have moved in later on.
What all of these prehistoric peoples had in common was enough free time,
enough muscle and enough organization to move millions of cubic feet of earth
and shape it into rational forms.
And at least one other quality: the drive to construct something that,
centuries later, still intrigues.
In early April, I logged 1,217 miles across five states in seven days to
visit 13 mound groups. I don’t recommend that pace. But even so, I still
didn’t visit every possible mound site, nor do I list them all below. What I
do recommend is that you think of this list as a starting point and that you
visit several types of sites. By seeing a combination of burial mounds, effigy
mounds, geometric mounds and enclosure mounds, you’ll develop a wider
perspective on the cultures that built them. But that’s no promise you’ll know
them more intimately as a people.
With few exceptions, each site I explored was a place where the breeze
rustled tree branches, voices carried on the wind and birdsong was often the
loudest sound I heard. Even in the relative quiet, the beat of the past eluded
me like an echo grown faint with repetition.
OHIO: HOPEWELL TO SERPENT MOUND
This route begins and ends in the town of Chillicothe, 45 miles south of
Columbus. It takes in the Mound City Group of burial mounds at Hopewell
Culture National Historical Park, the Seip burial mound, the hilltop
earthworks known as Ft. Hill and the effigy Serpent Mound.
Hopewell NHP/Mound City Group
GETTING THERE
From U.S. Highway 35 at Chillicothe, exit Ohio Highway 104 north. Drive 1.6
miles to Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
It looks like an exaggerated fairway, grassy and wide open except that this
13-acre tract is squared off by a round-cornered embankment that encompasses
some especially prominent mounds. The square footage of Mound City Group is
small compared to other Hopewell groupings, but this site is significant
because it contains more mounds: 23.
But this is no golf course; it’s an ancient cemetery. High-ranking dead
were brought here for partial cremation in wooden charnel houses; the location
of one is now indicated by an outline of posts that rise only an inch or two
from the ground. The deceased’s ashes — along with objects such as shells
from the Gulf of Mexico, points of obsidian from Wyoming and Idaho, sharks
teeth from the Atlantic Ocean and large sheets of mica from North Carolina —
would have been placed in a shallow pit in the charnel house floor and covered
by a low mound. After several such burials, the charnel house would be
dismantled, leaving behind the now-larger mound.
A 1.5-mile trail wanders the grounds outside the embankment wall, but
that’s not how you’ll explore this place. Instead, you’ll be drawn straight
into the mound complex, past the “borrow pits” from which earth was taken to
build the mounds, and through an opening in the embankment wall.
History hasn’t been kind to these grounds. What wasn’t plowed, the Army
appropriated in 1917 to construct Camp Sherman, when much of the place was
leveled for the 2,000 or so buildings needed to train 35,000 troops at a time.
The railroad tracks that carried supply trains into camp ran right over the
mounds nearest the Scioto River.
A walk to the river’s edge finds the Scioto brown, fast-moving and out of
its banks. An interpretive sign says that on the opposite shore lies a larger
mound group, the Hopeton Earthworks.
You can’t visit them. You can’t even see them for all the trees, but the
sign says Hopeton’s great circle and great square were each larger than Mound
City, with a roadway that would have measured 2,400 feet long. It’s no comfort
that the inmates at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, next door to Mound
City, probably can’t see them either.
Much of what you’ll see in the Mound City Group has been reconstructed from
detailed elevation maps drawn in 1846. The museum displays some of the objects
recovered from the mounds: the copper headdress from Mound 13, the pottery
bowl from Mound 2. One display case shows nothing but stone “pipes”– most are
carved into realistic animal shapes — though some are reproductions, and the
guide who has worked here for 20 years says they more likely were used as
incense burners.
FACILITIES
Visitor center is open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. with extended summer hours. It
shows a short film about the Hopewell culture and houses a small museum, gift
shop and restrooms. Admission is $2 for adults or $4 for all occupants of the
same vehicle. Mound site is grassy, and trails are either of grass or bark.
(740-774-1126)
Seip Mound
GETTING THERE
Exit Hopewell NHP south onto Ohio 104, driving into downtown Chillicothe,
about 4 miles to U.S. Highway 50. Turn onto U.S. 50 by making a right-hand
hairpin turn. Seip Mound State Memorial is 16.3 miles farther, through
farm-studded Paint Creek Valley, on U.S. 50.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
What remains of this Hopewell site is a 30-foot high oval burial mound 240
feet long and 130 feet wide. Some sources say other mounds are visible, but
even through the bare branches and scant undergrowth of early April, that’s
the only mound I saw. This was once the central earthwork of a site that
covered 122 acres surrounded by a mound wall 10 feet high. The location of two
cremation shelters has been outlined with wooden posts that, like the similar
configuration at Mound City Group, rise no more than a couple of inches from
the ground.
FACILITIES
Picnic tables, restrooms and a small shed where historical information is
posted. Park is open daylight hours and is free. Grassy ground is relatively
level, but once you leave the parking lot, there are no paved pathways.
Ft. Hill
GETTING THERE
From Seip Mound, continue 3.7 miles on U.S. 50 to and through Bainbridge
and exit south on Ohio Highway 41. Continue 10 miles to Ft. Hill State
Memorial. This leg of the drive takes you deeper into the hills along
serpentine roads that post 30 mph speed limits for good reason. Fields give
way to hillside pastures and forests, and other signs caution drivers to watch
for horse-and-buggy traffic, also for good reason.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
More Top Picks Best Monitor Light Bars For Eye Strain
The Hopewell who built this 48-acre hilltop enclosure didn’t need a
Stairmaster. They’d have been buff enough pacing this 400-foot vertical hike
from the parking area up to the summit. If you outlast the climb, the trail
will lead you through a “gate” between two of the mounds. The park
superintendent who was spading up the packed-earth trail for a new season of
visitors said that a lot of people walk right through the gate and never know
it. So set a pace that allows you time to study your surroundings. Plan on
taking an hour to make it to the summit, catch your breath, study some of the
mounds and get back to the car. If you stay at the summit till your thigh
muscles stop twitching, you can continue the hike along the 2.3-mile loop
trail that outlines the 1.5-mile wall of the enclosure. The mound wall ranges
from 6 to 15 feet in height, and there are 33 gates or openings. When
Europeans started seeing hilltop enclosures like this, they assumed their use
must have been as a fortress, thus Ft. Hill. Scholars have since decided that
places like this couldn’t have been forts because the borrow pits, or
trenches, are on the inside of the walls. The challenge for the park visitor
is making out the walls and trenches in the first place; they’re hard to see
because of trees and other vegetation.
FACILITIES
A small museum is undergoing renovation and is scheduled to reopen sometime
this summer. Museum admission will be $3 for adults; children $1.25. The park
is free, open daylight hours and has restrooms, picnic tables and a picnic
pavilion. Trails are uphill, made of earth and clay, and treacherous when wet.
(800-283-8905)
Serpent Mound
GETTING THERE
Back on Ohio 41, continue south 10 miles to Locust Grove and head northwest
on Ohio Highway 73 4 miles to Serpent Mound State Memorial. The drive meanders
through church-camp country (and also past an auto graveyard and at least one
used-car corral); and though it only totals 14 miles, count on it taking at
least half an hour.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
Even when you climb the 35 steps of the metal observation tower, you can’t
see all of this effigy mound in one shot. What has been so often interpreted
as an uncoiling snake winds its seven curves, gaping mouth and the oval it
appears ready to consume across the top of a promontory in a long arc. Yet
Serpent Mound really isn’t so big by modern standards. It’s just 1,348 feet
long, and you can walk all the way around it on the asphalt path in 15 minutes
— less than that if you don’t dawdle at the two overlooks to Ohio Brush Creek
and its valley. In fact, the park employee who took the entrance fee bragged
that you can see the whole park, serpent and museum, in half an hour.
Neither is Serpent Mound high, varying from two to six feet. The wonder of
it is that this embankment of rock, soil and clay was even built, that certain
points on its body align with solstice and equinox, and that it has survived.
An 1883 photo in the museum shows the mound hedged by corn fields. It has
eroded, been excavated, been restored.
They used to think Serpent Mound was built by the Adena culture because the
nearby burial mounds, at the park entrance and the picnic grounds, were
identified as Adena. But research suggests a construction date around 1070
A.D. and the probability that Ft. Ancient people put it here.
FACILITIES
A small museum also houses a snack bar and gift shop. Park is open 10
a.m.-5 p.m. with extended summer hours. Grounds include restrooms and picnic
tables. Admission is $5 per car. The pathway around Serpent Mound is narrow
but paved with asphalt and reasonably level most of the way. An incline on the
far side might pose a challenge to some wheelchairs. (800-752-2757)
Back to Chillicothe
Take Ohio 73 until you reach the four-lane divided Ohio Highway 32. Head
northeast on Ohio 32. From this road you may return to Chillicothe either of
two ways: The scenic route stays with Ohio 32 only until it meets Ohio Highway
772, then wanders north on Ohio 772 back to Chillicothe; the fast route sticks
with Ohio 32, then picks up U.S. Highway 23 into Chillicothe.
AREA RESOURCES
Ross-Chillicothe Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-413-4118)
OHIO: The Newark Earthworks
Moundbuilders/Great Circle
GETTING THERE
Newark is 35 miles east of Columbus. To get there from Interstate Highway
70, exit at Ohio Highway 79 north and drive 7.8 miles to Moundbuilders State
Memorial on the west side of the highway.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
Here’s one mound that is big: 1,200 feet in diameter with mounded walls
high enough to block much of the traffic noise. Together, the Hopewell’s Great
Circle, Octagon Mounds and Wright Earthworks formed a system of connected
structures that once covered more than 4 square miles — what some have
claimed was the largest geometric earthen complex anywhere in the world.
It takes a solid 20 minutes to walk the inside perimeter of the Great
Circle’s 26 acres. Though there’s no paved path, people have worn their own
trail through the grass. The ground inside the Great Circle is tree-studded —
though marked with the tire tracks of mowers — vast and level except for the
central grouping of low mounds, collectively called Eagle Mound, believed to
have been used for ceremonies.
FACILITIES
Visitor center is open Wednesday-Sunday, Memorial Day-Labor Day, with
admission $3 for adults, $1 children. Park grounds are free and open daylight
hours year-round. Grassy ground is relatively level, but once you leave the
parking area and sidewalk to the visitor center, there are no paved pathways.
(800-600-7174)
NEARBY
I didn’t visit Newark’s Wright Earthworks, but the Ohio State Historical
Society locates them at the intersection of James and Waldo Streets.
Octagon Mounds
GETTING THERE
From the Great Circle, drive south on Ohio Highway 79 1 mile to 30th
Street. Make a hard turn back to the right onto 30th Street and drive 1.7
miles to Parkview, where you’ll first glimpse the mounds. Turn left onto
Parkview and drive two blocks to the parking lot of Moundbuilders Country
Club.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
Yes, these mounds really are on the grounds of what is now a golf course,
the private Moundbuilders Country Club. From the low platform near the parking
lot, you can watch golfers make their plays between the mounds before
returning to their carts to drive — over the mounds on paved pathways — to
the next shot. A sign says visitors are welcome to view the mounds as long as
they stay off of them and don’t bother the golfers. Visitors, however, are not
welcome in the clubhouse, another sign says. You’re supposed to be able to
tune to an AM radio station that will tell more about these mounds, but the
radio in the rental car didn’t pick it up.
FACILITIES
Parking lot, observation platform.
NEARBY
Flint Ridge State Memorial, a flint quarry in use for an estimated 10,000
years, is 4 miles north of I-70 on Ohio Highway 668. But if you leave Newark
by way of Ohio 16 east, you’ll pass by the home offices of Longaberger (maker
of baskets and home decor), which is headquartered in a seven-story,
180,000-square-foot building that’s shaped like a giant picnic basket. Then
you can head south on Ohio 668.
AREA RESOURCES
Licking County Convention and Visitors Bureau (800-589-8224)
OHIO: Miamisburg and Ft. Ancient
Miamisburg Mound
GETTING THERE
South of Dayton, exit Interstate Highway 75 onto Ohio Highway 725 west into
Miamisburg 1 mile for a left turn onto Gebhart Church Road. Continue 1.6 miles
to Benner Road and turn right. Continue another mile for a right turn onto
Mound Road. Miamisburg Mound State Memorial is half a mile on the right. This
is a detour route; the more direct route to the park is under construction.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
You start on a 100-foot bluff above the Miami River Valley, so by the time
you climb the 116 steps to the top of this 65-foot conical burial mound, you
can see downtown Dayton on the north-northeast horizon. They say this is the
largest cone-shaped mound in Ohio, perhaps even in the United States. The
mound’s base covers 1.5 acres with a 300-foot diameter. It used to be taller,
68 to 70 feet high depending on who’s estimating. It took a clumsy excavation
attempt in 1869 to lower it to its current height. If not for the nearby
smokestacks of Mound Advanced Technology Center and the neighborhood of older
homes with newer siding, Miamisburg Mound might look lonely. It’s the only
mound on the bluff, but that reportedly is the way the Adena did things.
FACILITIES
Picnic pavilion, playground and restrooms. Park is free and open daylight
hours. Grassy ground is relatively level, but no paved pathways.
Ft. Ancient
GETTING THERE
Return to I-75, heading south to Ohio Highway 123, just north of
Middletown. Take Ohio 123 southeast 13 miles toward and through Lebanon to
Ohio Highway 350. Turn east onto Ohio 350 and drive 5 miles to Ft. Ancient
State Memorial. You’ll drive between a pair of mounds to enter the park.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
It’s a 270-foot leap from the gorge of the Little Miami River to the summit
of this bluff — a drive so steep that trucks sometimes get stuck making the
climb. Up top, more than 3.5 miles of mound walls, some up to 23 feet high,
rim the irregularly shaped hilltop, enclosing about 100 acres. The museum here
is new, large and works at putting Ft. Ancient into the larger context of
history. Exhibits range from information on the Burning Tree Mastodon to the
military victory of Little Turtle and Blue Jacket over Gen. St. Clair in 1791
— and clarify the origin of these particular earthworks: The Hopewell built
them, but the Ft. Ancient people moved in later and made modifications. But
because the Ft. Ancient culture was the first to be excavated, construction
was attributed to them, and thus the name of the site.
Several hiking trails surround the site with interpretive signs posted
along the way. Overlooks open onto vistas of other hilltops, and though it
would be hard to determine their contours beneath their cloak of forest, the
other hilltops don’t seem as flat as this one.
FACILITIES
Large new museum with restrooms and small gift shop. Grounds have picnic
tables and pavilions. Park is open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. with admission $5 for
adults, $1.25 children. (800-283-8904)
AREA RESOURCES
Dayton/Montgomery County Convention & Visitors Bureau (937-226-8211);
Lebanon and Warren County Convention & Visitors Bureau (800-791-4FUN); Greater
Cincinnati Convention & Visitors Bureau (800-344-3445)
ILLINOIS: Cahokia and Dickson Mounds
Cahokia
GETTING THERE
From Interstate Highway 55 near St. Louis exit Interstate 255 south. From
there, take the Collinsville Road exit to the stop light. Heading west on
Collinsville Road, drive 1.3 miles to the entrance of Cahokia Mounds State
Historic Site.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
It’s hard to say which is worse, the run-down neighborhood of carpet
outlets, used-car dealerships and trailer parks or the fact that law-breakers
continue to ride all-terrain vehicles over some of the mounds of this United
Nations World Heritage Site. Too bad there’s nothing but thin air taking the
place of the 2-mile long stockade fence that the Mississippian culture erected
around this city of mounds a thousand years ago.
Despite the physical assaults and environmental indignities — train
whistles, the smell of burning trash and four lanes of traffic running right
through the park — what’s left of the largest pre-historic city north of
Mexico is still impressive. It’s a climb of 60 steps just to reach the first
terrace of Monk’s Mound, another 96 to make it to the flat top of this
imperfect pyramid. Up here, you can see the skyline of St. Louis, where 29
mounds once stood, according to one of the Cahokia park guides.
Monk’s Mound is Cahokia’s most prominent structure, 100 feet high, covering
14 acres with 22 million cubic feet of earth. Perhaps between 20,000 to 30,000
people lived in the surrounding 6.5 square miles before Cahokia became a ghost
town — no one knows why — about 1400 A.D.
Among Cahokia’s other features is Woodhenge, a circle of wooden posts
believed to serve as a calendar. Only 40 of the original 48 posts have been
replaced for visitors to see, for a cyclone fence and the very modern gravel
mounds of Maclair Asphalt occupy that area.
FACILITIES
Visitor center shows an award-winning film about the site and houses a
museum of interpretive displays, snack bar, gift shop and restrooms. Visitor
center hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and donations are accepted. Self-guided tours
and those led by park volunteers are available. Park is open daylight hours
and is free. (618-346-5160)
AREA RESOURCES
St. Louis Convention & Visitors Bureau (800-916-0040)
More Top Picks Best Dust Boots Under 50
Dickson Mounds
GETTING THERE
From the intersection of Illinois Highway 97 and U.S. Highway 136 in Havana
(southwest of Peoria), drive 4.7 miles north on Illinois 97 to the turnoff to
Dickson Mounds Museum; museum entrance is another 1.8 miles.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
If you want to see a prehistoric mound, you might try Rockwell Indian Mound
back in Havana: a park with picnic tables and a pavilion at the end of Orange
Street, three-quarters of a mile off Illinois 97. Dickson Mounds Museum is
just that: a museum. But it’s a large new one, whose show-stopping multi-media
production “Reflections on Three Worlds” — a five-track sound system that
blends the music and voices of American Indians with a computer-programmed
light and slide presentation — upstages other interpretive exhibits and
artifacts such as pottery, flints, bone necklaces, muskets and a 17-foot
dugout canoe, believed crafted 1700-1850 by non-Indians.
Away from the main museum, three buildings shelter excavations of village
houses, and there’s a hilltop picnic ground, but no visible evidence of the
burial exhibit that drew first tourists, and later Native American protesters,
here.
FACILITIES
Three-story modern museum houses a snack bar, gift shop and restrooms. Open
daily 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., and admission is free. (309-547-3721)
AREA RESOURCES
Havana Chamber of Commerce (309-543-3528)
IOWA: Toolesboro and Effigy Mounds
Toolesboro Mounds
GETTING THERE
Toolesboro Mounds National Historic Site is near the west bank of the
Mississippi River in eastern Iowa, about halfway between Burlington and
Muscatine on Iowa Highway 99.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
As many as nine Hopewell burial mounds may once have dotted this bluff
above the Mississippi. There might have been a time when you could see the
river from here, but a tangle of trees blocks that view today — and only
three manicured mounds stand out. For many years, it was believed that in 1673
Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette may have canoed their way to an Illini
settlement here, or at least very nearby. But that theory fled with new
evidence uncovered in Missouri. So only fields and farm houses keep the
Toolesboro mounds company now.
FACILITIES
A small refurbished museum, with restrooms inside, is open noon-4 p.m.
daily, Memorial Day-Labor Day. Mounds are near the parking area. (Iowa State
Historical Society, 515-281-5111)
AREA RESOURCES
Eastern Iowa Tourism Association (800-891-EITA)
Effigy Mounds
GETTING THERE
Effigy Mounds National Historical Park is in northeastern Iowa, 3.5 miles
north of Marquette on Iowa Highway 76. It’s just across the Mississippi River
from Prairie du Chien, Wis.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
In early April, the late-afternoon sun casts the shadows of aspens,
boxelders and sumacs across these cliff tops, 350 feet above the Mississippi
River. The shadows are straight, except where the leaf-covered mounds pull the
shadows into subtle curves. These low mounds, a row of 16 circular ones along
the Fire Point Trail, are among the 200 preserved in this national historical
park. It’s a job to see them. This loop trail alone covers only 2 miles of the
13 miles of trails in the park. And this trail takes 45 minutes to hike; at
least that’s what the park ranger said.
But it can take twice that long if you are there for more than a simple
forest hike. It takes time to study the elongated mound that has three peaks,
time to walk the perimeter of Little Bear Mound, time to detour to walk the
perimeter of Great Bear Mound — time to appreciate what is here. (Little
Bear, by the way, is 132 strides around; Great Bear is 234.)
Those who studied these mounds in 1999 found them highly magnetic,
suggesting that topsoil was used to build them. What has been known longer is
that fires were once burned in some of the bear-shaped mounds, usually where
the head or heart would be located.
FACILITIES
The visitor center shows a short film and operates a museum with a gift
shop and restrooms. Visitor center hours are 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. with extended
summer hours, and admission is $2 for adults or $4 for all occupants of a
vehicle. With the exception of the visitor center grounds, hikes are up steep
hillsides to the cliff top. (319-873-3491)
AREA RESOURCES
Prairie du Chien Chamber of Commerce (608-326-8555)
WISCONSIN: Aztalan
GETTING THERE
Aztalan State Park is about halfway between Madison and Milwaukee, off
Interstate Highway 94. From I-94 exit Wisconsin 89 south, driving 1 mile to
Jefferson County Highway A east. Stay on A east and take Jefferson County
Highway Q south 2 miles to the park entrance.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
This 21-acre city would have bordered Crawfish River and would have been
surrounded with a 12-foot high stockade fence — like the reconstructed
portions that frame the largest mound here.
The largest mound, a restored terraced pyramid, could pass as the little
brother of Monk’s Mound at Cahokia. And, in fact, Aztalan is a Mississippian
site.
Mount the 13 steps to the mound’s first terrace and the additional 17 steps
to the top, and you have a good view of the entire Aztalan plaza, a second
reconstructed pyramid mound, a grouping of burial mounds and a natural knoll
used as a burial ground. A closer study of the stockade fence shows that it
had towers posted at regular intervals.
Aztalan shares another trait with Cahokia: It became a ghost town in 1200
A.D. Again, no one knows why, though the remains of charred logs have spurred
speculation that a fire took the village.
FACILITIES
Picnic tables, restrooms and a shelter where historical information is
posted. Park is open daylight hours and is free. There are no paved trails in
the central plaza or mound area.
AREA RESOURCES
Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau (800-373-6376); Greater
Milwaukee Convention & Visitors Bureau (800-554-1448)
Some other Midwest mounds
Norton Mound Group
Grand Rapids, Mich. — A National Historic Landmark. The site is partially
fenced and covered in vegetation. It can be visited, but is hard to find, and
historians describe it as a place of interest only to archeologists and
Hopewell enthusiasts, not casual visitors. There are no facilities. (Grand
Rapids/Kent County Convention & Visitors Bureau, 616-459-8287)
Angel Mounds State Historic Site
Evansville, Ind. — State park with mounds and reconstructions of stockade
fences and other structures that originally would have been built by the
Mississippian culture. (812-853-3956)
Mounds State Park
Anderson, Ind. — State park with 10 earthworks believed to have been built
during Adena and Hopewell periods. (812-853-3956)
To tour the mounds is to share the responsibility of preserving them. The
mounds that can be visited today are covered either by lush lawns or by stands
of trees and a tangle of undergrowth.
It can hardly be expected that the mounds looked like this when the Mound
Builders created them.
Even so, walking on the mounds — let alone driving vehicles over them as
has been reported in recent news coverage of Cahokia — leads to erosion. It’s
also disrespectful; many mounds are ancient burial sites and thus considered
sacred ground by many Native Americans; they should be considered sacred by us
all.
The mounds of North America have been here far longer than Mt. Vernon or
the Golden Gate Bridge or any other famous building in this country. They’re
of this land, literally, but belong to the ages. Tread softly.
———-
Toni Stroud’s e-mail address is [email protected].