Here on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River is one of the world’s most unusual cemeteries. Within the 1,500 acres of Effigy Mounds National Monument are nearly 200 ancient burial mounds, 29 of which are shaped like giant birds and animals.
These mounds, observes archeologist Gerard Fowke, “are among the earliest and most widely distributed memorials of the dead.” As such, they provide physical links to a culture that had already come and gone by the time Columbus first viewed the West Indies.
Effigy Mounds National Monument is located north of Dubuque in the northeastern corner of Iowa, about a 4 1/2-hour drive from Chicago. The site extends some six miles along timbered bluffs overlooking the mighty Mississippi and is administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.
Although small when compared to many other sites in our National Parks system, Effigy Mounds has much to offer. “These mounds are unique,” says Rod Roving, resource manager at the monument. “They are only found here and in neighboring areas of Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. The sacredness of this place and its great natural beauty make visiting here a meaningful experience.”
The surrounding area is rich in history. During the three centuries following the arrival of European powers in North America, the Mississippi River Valley was controlled at one time or another by four nations: Spain, France, England and the United States.
In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, the region played a key role in U.S. efforts to wrest control of the rich Upper River Valley from Great Britain. It was also the scene of the Blackhawk Indian War in the early 19th Century.
Even earlier it had been the pathway of great explorers. In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet found that the lofty limestone cliffs rising above the Mississippi at this point reminded them of “ruined castles and towers of the Rhine.” Later explorers to pass through the region included Jonathan Carver, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Stephen H. Long and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.
But of the many threads of history to be found here, none is more moving than that of the Mound Builders, a culture that is believed to have existed during a span of five to six centuries, from, roughly, 650 A.D. to 1200-1300 A.D.
The mounds found here are of the conical and linear types, as well as effigies shaped in the likeness of birds and bears. At one time there may have been other effigies as well, but they have not survived.
Archeologists do not agree as to exactly why the Mound people constructed these effigies. Some believe they were intended to serve as a symbol of respect for creatures with whom the builders shared a common environment.
The mounds may also have had astronomical significance. The Marching Bears effigy appears to have been designed so the Big Dipper lies exactly over the top of the column in spring and over the bottom of the column in fall, possibly serving as a kind of agricultural calendar.
During the 19th Century, it was fashionable to speculate about the origin of the Mound Builders. Many were convinced that the Mound people were of a highly developed civilization that had vanished long before the advent of Native Americans, who were believed incapable of creating such elaborate earth works. Others, however, including Maj. John Wesley Powell, first director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, dismissed such grand theories and concluded, from archeological evidence, that the Mound Builders were in fact ancestors of the Native Americans, a view generally accepted today.
Of the people themselves, we know little. They were probably descended from prehistoric Paleo-Indian hunters, who evolved into a hunter-gatherer culture, supplementing a diet of red meat with nuts, berries and fruit. Industrious, they also developed tools such as the adz and axe, and the women adorned themselves with jewelry made of bone and copper obtained in trade with tribes of the Upper Great Lakes.
The mounds are believed to have been constructed by hauling in crude buckets dirt scraped from the surrounding area with primitive tools such as deer antlers. The loose dirt was then shaped into the desired effigy. Dogs were possibly employed as beasts of burden, much as they were for the later Plains Indians before the advent of the horse.
The Effigy culture was preceded by two earlier cultural groups, the Red Ochre and Hopewellian, both of which constructed conical and linear mounds. The Red Ochre culture dates back some 2,500 years and was so named because excavated remains from their mounds were found lying on a floor of red ochre.
The Hopewell (100 B.C.-600 A.D.) was perhaps the most influential of the mound-building people because of that culture’s great sphere of trade ranging from its Ohio River Valley heartland as far afield as the Rockies and the Gulf Coast. The Hopewells were supplanted by the Effigy Culture, which was in turn succeeded by the Oneota Culture. Some vestiges of the Oneota civilization were still in existence when Anglo-Europeans reached the New World.
There is as much conjecture about the demise of the Mound Builders as about their origin. Climatic change, drought, disease and internecine war have all been advanced as possibilities.
As white civilization moved into the region, many of the mounds were excavated or destroyed, either to satisfy scientific curiosity or because they presented an obstacle to one kind of development or another. Some were victims of vandalism.
During the 1970s, an archeological research team undertook a survey to catalog existing mounds. As part of the process, each mound was outlined with a band of biodegradable lime and photographed from the air, providing a perspective that is impossible to achieve from close up.
In fact, early visitors to the area may have overlooked some mounds because, as 19th Century archeologist Samuel Haven pointed out, “The great horizontal dimensions of these effigies, raised but a few feet above the surface of the ground, was doubtless the reason why they failed to arrest the attention of travelers at an early period.”
Now, as then, the mounds do not present an immediately recognizable shape from close-up. However, to aid the identification process, the National Park Service has provided interpretive plaques with outlines of the effigies.
By the time it was completed in the mid-’80s the survey revealed that this area once held some 54 different mound groupings, consisting of nearly 1,500 individual mounds, of which approximately 80 percent had been destroyed–many by axe, dynamite and forklifts.
The establishment of Effigy Mounds in 1949 ensured the protection of at least those mounds that lie within its boundaries. Unfortunately, the majority of prehistoric mounds in the U.S. are located on private property and as such are totally vulnerable. Some other mounds in the vicinity are located on state land–at Pike’s Peak State Park for example.
Effigy Mounds is divided into two sections by the Yellow River, which flows into the Mississippi a short distance below the visitor center. The North Unit, in which the visitor center is located, draws the most attention, but if you have the time, the South Unit has much to offer too.
Plan to spend time in the visitor center before starting out. A video presentation provides historical background.
Overall, the monument contains 11 miles of clearly marked trails, which can be sampled briefly or experienced in their entirety. From the visitor center, the trail climbs steadily upward, winding back and forth in easy switchbacks.
On each side of the heavily wooded trail the National Park Service has thoughtfully provided interpretive plaques identifying various trees and shrubs, noting how Native Americans used each. (The bark of the hornbeam tree, for example, was used to treat cramps and fevers, while the inner bark of the basswood tree produced a cord for sewing and weaving.)
The first mound one encounters is Little Bear, just beyond which is a trail junction. The right hand trail is self-guiding and leads to the Fire Point overlook, rising some 300 feet above the valley floor. Allow about an hour for the Fire Point Tour, which provides a good sampling of what Effigy Mounds has to offer.
A short distance beyond the Fire Point junction is Great Bear Mound. Dwarfing its sibling, this prodigious effigy measures 137 feet in length, 70 feet across the shoulders, and nearly 4 feet in height.
Beyond Great Bear Mound, the trail continues north, paralleling the river for another two miles or so, to Hanging Rock. Mounds can be viewed from several points along the trail.
The South Unit’s main attraction is the Pleasant Ridge Mounds Group with its Marching Bears– 10 bear effigies, each about 3 feet high and 80 to 100 feet long.
DETAILS ON EFFIGY MOUNDS
Getting there: Access to Effigy Mounds is easy and convenient. From Marquette, Iowa, follow Iowa Highway 76 (The Great River Road) north for 3 1/2 miles.
The basics: Hours are 8 a.m.-7 p.m. daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day (8 a.m.-5 p.m. during the rest of the year–until 7 p.m. on weekends in October). The site is closed on Christmas Day. Admission fee is $2 per person or $4 for a family in a car (children under 16 are free as are seniors over 61 with a Golden Age Passport). Guided tours are available, but prior arrangements are required.
Information: Contact the Superintendent, Effigy Mounds National Monument, 151 Hwy. 76, Harpers Ferry, Iowa 52146; phone 319-873-3491.
