![]() The map, produced by the Cartography Lab, was developed by Rob Roth, Andy Woodruff and Joel Przybylowski under the direction of history professor Bill Cronon and geography professor Mark Harrower. The Web site of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve has information about effigy mounds and natural and historic features on campus.įinding those campus resources is easy as the site includes a detailed, multidimensional interactive map that lets users zoom in on any of UW–Madison’s notable landmarks, including effigy mounds, natural features such as topography, soil and vegetation, and vanishing and surviving historic features. Getting to know UW–Madison’s cultural landscape, including effigy mounds and archaeological sites, can be accomplished with a few clicks to the right Web portal. Others were - and continue to be - lost to the depravations of illegal prospecting for artifacts and some were destroyed by early archaeological investigations. ![]() But sadly, most of the Midwest’s burial and effigy mounds have been destroyed by 175 years of agricultural, urban and rural development. ![]() In the Madison area, which must have been a busy place in prehistory, there are an estimated 1,300 extant effigy mounds, including the world’s largest known bird effigy, with a wingspan of 624 feet, on the grounds of the Mendota Mental Heath Institute. In terms of density of earthworks, we’re at the top of the heap,” according to Rosebrough. Wisconsin, in particular, was a place where native people left their mark on the landscape by constructing edifices for burial or, perhaps, when it came to effigy mounds in the shapes of animals, birds and spirits, for the benefit of totemic relationships: “There are more in Wisconsin than elsewhere. In the Midwest, there are at least 15,000 of the earthworks, built between 350 and 2,800 years ago. The occasional offering of tobacco, wrapped in patterned cloth and tied to the branch of a nearby tree is a silent testament to the spiritual significance of the mounds to American Indians today. Today, the mounds are protected by law, and they remain important to Native Americans. One large mound on Bascom Hill, ironically the location of Madison’s first cemetery for early white settlers, was leveled when Bascom Hall was constructed in 1857 and at least two mounds were destroyed when Agricultural Hall was built in 1901. At least 14 more have been lost to development. Throw the Arboretum into the calculus, and today there are 38 effigy and burial mounds in six groupings on the UW–Madison campus (five groups are no longer visible/destroyed). This is the only place in the world where people created large structures in the shape of animals for burial.” “There are more burial mounds on the UW–Madison campus than any other campus I’m aware of, and there are certainly more effigy mounds. “Worldwide, these are an extremely rare resource,” notes Amy Rosebrough, Wisconsin’s assistant state archaeologist and a UW–Madison graduate student in anthropology. But one thing is clear: There are more of the earthen monuments in greater variety on the UW–Madison campus than any other university or college campus anywhere in North America, and probably the world.ĭaniel Einstein, program manager of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, is pictured near the location of an ancient Native American effigy mound near Picnic Point. Together with the much larger and more enigmatic effigy mounds, the tumuluses represent a unique signature on the landscape, inscribed hundreds or thousands of years ago by native peoples for reasons archaeologists, Native Americans and others still debate. Hidden in its leafy niche, the mound is one of dozens of very old and still sacred burial mounds found on the UW–Madison campus. ![]() Every day, scores of people amble or jog past the desk-sized structure on their way to the tip of Picnic Point unaware that a human monument - perhaps as ancient as Egypt’s pyramids - is within arm’s reach. Tucked in a tangle of Virginia creeper and garlic mustard, the barrow, a simple hemisphere of compacted soil, is lost to any but the most interested observer. There are believed to be more burial mounds at UW–Madison than any other U.S. A plaque identifies the location of an ancient Native American effigy mound in the shape of a bird near Observatory Hill. ![]()
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