Indian Mounds of Wisconsin (Second Edition) by Robert A. Birmingham and Amy L. Rosebrough

    This was a great survey of Wisconsin's Indian mounds and delivered as promised. Summary below.

    The Native Americans of eastern North America constructed the vast majority of mounds over a toughly 2,000-year-old period, from 800 BCE to 1200 CE. There are some very significant exceptions from long before this period, but this was the period of major activity. The archeological chronology of Wisconsin is divided like so:

Paleo-Indian

    Early: 10000-8000 BCE

              Late: 8000-6/5000 BCE 

Archaic

    Early: 8000-4000 BCE

    Middle: 6000-1200 BCE

    Late: 1200 BCE-100 BCE

Woodland

    Early: 500 BCE-100CE

    Middle: 100 BCE-500CE

    Late: 500CE-1200CE 

Middle Mississippian: 1000CE-1200CE 

Upper Mississippian (Oneota) 1000CE-historic period 

    In the Archaic period, the levels of Lake Michigan were about twenty feet higher, and sturgeon, now in danger, was very important to the survival of the people in the area. Sturgeon can reach six feet and 200 pounds, and Sturgeon is one of the Menominee clans today. The water-centric life inspired belief in some kind of water panther god that lived in a watery world underground, and is represented in many effigy mounds. People in the Archaic period were known to work copper, mining it in the Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale, and performing metallurgy as early as 5500 BCE. 

    Wisconsin's first burial mounds were built in 500 BCE, in Red Ochre Ceremonial Complex. The authors mention a theory that I found interesting, that burial mounds represented a way of returning a body to the earth to restore equilibrium and guarantee renewal for the future. And that mound-building came to an end as agriculture and harvest festivals came about, rendering the mound-renewal redundant.

    There was a period of rapid change beginning in 500 CE, climaxing in 700-1100 CE, when the bow and arrow replaced the speak thrower/atlatl, better pottery vessels were made, and corn joined squash as a major crop for the people of the Midwest. These changes were probably related to the development and spread of Mississippian culture. Corn was domesticated from teocinte and slowly diffused northward, reaching the Midwest by 900 CE. This brought on a shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture that covered the region. The capital of this movement was in southern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from Saint Louis, Cahokia. In Wisconsin, Aztalan is almost a small copy of Cahokia, and was a sort of Mississippian colony to the north. It was named by locals in the 20th century on a mistaken belief that it was a northern site of the Aztecs. But that was not correct. Also during this period, mound-building exploded throughout the southern part of Wisconsin, but the reasons are still a mystery. There are some signs of warfare, such as stockades surrounding mounds. More than 12,000 mounds were built in Wisconsin (including 1,000 effigy mounds) before the custom of mound building ended around 1200 CE. 40% of effigy mounds were shaped like bird, 21% bears, 18% water spirits, and 21% unidentified. And not all effigies are mounds, some are intaglios, meaning dug-out depressions in the shape of an animal. Usually, these are water spirits, and would fill with water when it rained, since they are "reverse mounds."

    By 1200CE, most of the people of southern Wisconsin had gathered in a few large, horticultural villages, abandoning many of the places where effigy building had thrived. This makes it look like the end of mound-building came about from a physical concentration of the population do to agriculture becoming dominant. But even with mound-building ended, the Ho-Chunk and Ioway still retained major aspects of their ancestors' belief system that can be traced back to the Oneota and other mound-builders. When Wisconsin Native peoples were asked about mounds, they usually ascribed them to customs that were practiced in the distant past, and the practice seemed to have ended long before Europeans arrived, which spawned skepticism among Europeans that the Native Americans were the true builders at all. However, some mounds were re-used for burials in the 19th and 20th centuries. Unfortunately, 80% of the 15,000 to 20,000 mounds built in Wisconsin have been destroyed by agriculture and development before historical preservation laws came into effect.

 Miscellaneous Facts:

• More Indian mounds were built in Wisconsin than in the territory of any modern-day state.
• The largest mound group in Wisconsin is the Mero Complex at Diamond Bluff in Pierce County, containing 390 mounds and effigies around a one-thousand-year-old village on the Mississippi River.
• The largest effigy mound built in Wisconsin was discovered in 1990 near Muscoda in an aerial photograph. The mound was a bird, and was destroyed by farming, but the soil shadow was still visible from the air.