Architecture

This is example of built environment research I have done. For more examples, click on the drop down tabs under “Architecture”.

Effigy Mound National Monument, written for
Arch 5461 North American Indian Architecture, 21 April 2005
by R.R.S. Stewart

Effigy Mound National Monument is located in Northeast Iowa, 3 miles north of Marquette on Iowa 13. Since 1949, the mounds have been cared for by the National Park Service. Very little is known about the mounds, in part because the National Park Service has decided preserving the mounds is much more important than excavating them. This policy is also meant to be respectful of the fact that some of the mounds contain human remains and many modern day tribes consider the mounds to be sacred. When excavations are done, the researchers are very careful to dig only small holes in unobtrusive areas of the mounds in order to make the excavations as minimally damaging to the mounds as possible. This paper will summarize what theories have grown out of the information that has been gathered.

Technology

            Effigies are representations of living creatures. In the case of effigy mounds, these representations are constructed from earth. Effigy mounds are found throughout Wisconsin and parts of northern Illinois, southeast Minnesota, and northeast Iowa, but many of them have been destroyed by farming activities. The effigy mounds that make up the national monument are 3 to 4 feet tall and up to 137 feet long (Effigy Mounds: Official Map and guide, hereafter referred to as 1995 Brochure).

One-hundred-ninety-one mounds making up the National Monument. Twenty-nine are animal effigies and the rest are conical, compound, or linear. The oldest mounds are conical shaped and some have been estimated to be 2500 years old. Conceal mounds are round domes of earth 2 to 10 feet high and 10 feet in diameter. Around 450 AD the compound and linear shapes appear. Linear mounds are 2 to 4 feet high, 6 to 8 feet wide, and up to 100 feet long. Compound mounds are a series of conical mounds connected by linear mounds. These chains of mounds could be up to 300 feet long, but no mounds of that length survive at the national monument.  Around 650 AD, animal shaped mounds began to appear. (1995 Brochure).

All the soils in the monument area are well drained, but the amount of loess  (a very rich organic material) they contain is very specific to the microclimates of bluff tops, upland bluff edges, side slopes, and floodplain. Some of the mounds contain different types of soil, which has been useful in dating them (1991 Management plan, p. 9)

Climate and Typography:

            The monument is comprised of 1,475.5 acres on the bluffs and floodplain where the Yellow River drains into the Mississippi. It is divided into three units: the bluffs north of the Yellow river, the bluffs south of the yellow river, and Sny Magill, the floodplain area. The bluff tops comprise about 50% of the monument area, with the bluff faces and floodplain each making up about 25%. There is a 500 ft. difference in elevation from the floodplain to the top of the bluffs.

The most prominent mounds in the North unit are the Great Bear Mound (which is 137 feet long) and Little Bear Mound. In the South unit is the marching bears mound group, which has been described as “…one of the finest [collections of effigy mounds] in the country.” (1991 Management Plan), contains ten bear effigies, three bird effigies, and 2 linear mounds. The Bear effigies are 3 feet high and 80 to 100 feet long. The Syn Magill unit is one of the densest collections of effigy mounds in the country, contain almost 100 mounds. The entire Syn Magill unit is in the 100 and 500 year flood plains.

“The monument is in the driftless (unglaciated) zone, a geologically unique area of erosion topography drained by an intricate system of rivers and streams.” (1991 Management plan, p.7) This means that the glaciers did not pass through this area during the last ice age and that the dramatic nature of the bluffs was created by the rivers carving out their floodplains. The bluffs are made of limestone and sandstone. Their freedom from ice cover during the last glaciation left botanically unique mix of woodland and prairie maintained by a natural fire cycle for the mound builders to inhabit. Even today,“It is the only place in the state of Iowa where stands of northern deciduous forest, more commonly found at or near the Canadian border, exist. The deep ravines and precipitous bluffs furnish micro-environments for entirely different plants. On the northern niches are supported plan communities that normally flourish much nearer the Arctic, while the south-facing slopes provide habitats for the growth of species usually found in drier regions.” (Perpetual March, p.2) “When the mound builders occupied the area, the uplands were dominated with sugar maple and basswood forests dotted with openings of prairie on the ridgetops.” (Perpetual, p.155)

Today a few native plant species can still be found in around the mounds, including the Northern Wild Monkshood,  the Jeweled Shooting star, the Brown Twayblade, the Leather Grape Fern, and the Spotted Sucker. (1991 Management Plan, p.13) The National Park Service believes that preserving the monuments in a historically accurate setting is important, particularly since many native animals could have provided models for the animal effigies. Maintaining the monument area’s unique ecosystems  also help with a better understanding of the mounds. The number of visitors to the mounds increases during the fall, when the changing leaves and nesting eagles provide a dramatic setting in which to view them. In addition to the bald eagle, the monument provides seasonal shelter to a number of other endangered or threatened species, including the Peregrine Falcon, the Iowa Pleistocene Snail, the Higgin’s Eye clam, the River Otter,  and the Red-shouldered Hawk. “There have been occasional sighting of gray foxes and coyotes; and although not sited within the monument boundaries, evidence shows that such rare and endangered species as black bears and bobcats may inhabit the area.” (Perpetual March, p.156)

Social Organization and Economics
(trade between the mound builders and other tribes):

Early Caucasian settlers believed the mounds were too sophisticated to have been built by Native American Indians, and so they theorized that a “lost” white race had constructed them. This theory was disproved in the late 1800s. Since then, it has been established that Effigy Mounds National Monument actually shows the influence of a few different native cultures.  This is deduced through artifacts found in the mounds, such as spear heads and pottery shards. The oldest mounds are associated with the Red Ocher culture, which flourished in Wisconsin from 1200- 500 BC. One excavated Red Ocher mound is almost 2,500 years old.  (1973 brochure.) This time period is known as the Early Woodland. Pottery at this time, examples of which have been found in some mounds, was thick and tempered in crushed rock.

Other mounds show the influence of the Hopewell culture, which flourished in the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys further to the south and east from 100 BC to 600 AD (1991 Management plan, p. 8). The Hopewell Culture was a part of the Middle Woodland time period. They built burial mounds were the dead were laid to rest with a conspicuous amount of goods, often with only one person buried to a mound (Perpetual March, p.5)

It is believed that the people who built the monument’s mounds were hunters, gatherers, and fishers that may have taken shelter in the caves as small family groups during the winter and gathered together as a tribe in rudimentary shelters of brush or skin during the summer. This is surmised from prehistoric rock shelters found near the mounds (1991 Management Plan, p.9). The time period they lived in (500 – 1000 AD) is called the Late Woodland. “Northern Iowa may have been a watershed between cultural areas. It was on the fringes of the Hopewellian, the Effigy Mound Building, the Eastern Woodland, and the Mississippian cultures” (Perpetual March, p.10)

Religion, Symbolism and Iconography:

Though the examples of refined painted pottery similar to that of the Hopewell culture found at Effigy Mound National Monument has led archeologists to conclude there was a trade of goods and ideas between the Hopewell culture and the mound builders, the simplicity of goods with which the mound builders were buried has led archeologist to conclude that the effigy mound builders were  a separate group from the Hopewell people.

“The effigy mound builders seem to have followed certain common practices. One was that most effigies seem to be proceeding downstream; even the majority of the bird effigies appear to be flying downstream. Another was that very few bodies were interred in each effigy mound; one or two burials seems to have been the norm, and many contained no remains. Although smaller in size, many of the conical mounds contain more burials. A third custom…the effigy mound builders did not include with their dead the wealth of material the Hopewellians did. ” (Perpetual March, p.9)

There are five known types of Effigy mounds: 1. birds, 2. animal viewed from above like an animal skin, 3. tailed animals laying on their sides, 4. tailless animals on their sides, 5. humans. Types 1 and 4 (birds viewed from above and bears on their sides) are found at Effigy National Monument.

The most accepted theory is that when the tribe came out of their scattered cave shelters at the end of winter and gathered into a village for the summer, they’d built mounds to mark their communal territory, celebrate gathering together again, and bury all the dead that had died during the previous year. Based upon the fragmentary condition of some of the human remains found, archeologists concluded that some of the bodies were kept out of the ground for some time before being buried. This lead to the theory that all the dead that died before the tribe could gather together were kept until such time as the next community mound could be built. The Late woodland culture flourished from 500 to 1000 AD; such a dense collection of mounds as those found at the National Monument site could have been caused by a tribe returning to the same site to build another mound every summer for hundreds of years.  (Video: The Iowa Effigy Mounds).

Historic documents and surveys of Iowa have shown that at the beginning of Euroamerican settlement there were at least 374 effigy mounds in Iowa spread throughout 53 different mound groups. “The groups occurs is discrete clusters, and with some notable exceptions, tend to be located on high ground, bluffs, or terraces overlooking major rivers, streams, lakes, and large wetlands… Examining the location of effigy mound groups in Iowa, R. Clark Mallam found that they tended to be associated with the richest areas of seasonally recurring food resources” (Birmingham, p. 112). Other activities that could have been timed to coincide with the summer gathering and mound building are the recognition of marriages, the conduct of trade, and the renewal of alliances. (Anderson, p. 48)

Research Robert Hall noted “…a close parallel between the major forms of effigies and the depictions of powerful spirits who inhabit the upperworld and lowerworld in the cosmology of many Native American tribes of the midwest and argued that the primary organizing principle for the mound groups is into these two major divisions” (Anderson, p. 115), such as the birds (upperworld) and bears (lowerworld) found at Effigy National Monument.  This theory has been examined to include the idea that the Late Woodland Mound Building culture could have been divided into upperworld and lowerworld moieties.

“In all these regards, we are reminded of R. Clark’s Mallam’s interpretation that effigy mounds were built to symbolize and ritually maintain balance and harmony with the natural world within the context of ceremonialism to renew the world” (Birmingham, p. 129)

No one knows why the effigy mounds stopped being built. “The builders left no written records and have no modern ancestors to pass on their story by word of mouth.” (1995 Brochure). One theory is that around 900 AD either upper Mississippian (Oneota) migrated to the area and gradually drove out the resident Late Woodland mound builders. The other is that the Oneota developed as a subset of the Late Woodland people. (Anderson, p.56)  This theory is supported by similarities in Mississippian cave paintings, Late Woodland pottery, and the Effigy mounds themselves, which all contain the upperworld / lowerworld balance in animal imagery that Hall noted. (Biringham, p. 121)

By 1200 AD, the Oneota proved more adept at growing maize than the other woodland people and thus were the culture that survived.  “The Upper Mississippians built a few scattered linear mounds and conical mounds over the next century or two,” but no more effigy mounds,  “From time to time the Mississippian people dug into one of the existing mounds to bury their dead, but usually they placed their internment in their own cemeteries” (Perpetual March, p. 9)

The Oneota developed into the Ioway, Oto, and Woodland Sioux tribes, which were then pushed further west by encroaching Euroamerican settlers. These tribes contain no legends nor oral traditions concerning the effigy mounds, but they do regard them as sacred. French settlers described mound building occurring in Wisconsin as late at the 1600’s. The woodland mound builder of Wisconsin may have evolved into the Mesquakie tribe, which were pushed into Iowa by Euroamerican settlers. In the mid 1800’s the Mesquakie were assigned to a reservation in Kansas, but the tribe managed to buy 3,000 acres of land in Tama County, Iowa, where they still dwell today. The Mesquakie don’t have any tribal legends about the mounds either, but they too regard them as sacred. (Anderson, p. 70-71)

The National Park Service probably summarizes the meanings of the mounds best. They are marks of a well-established native civilization that flourished long before the arrival of Europeans; an example of how human use of the land changed over 2,500 years; a representation of life and death; a demonstration of  the influence seasonal changes had on the lifestyles of native people; and intimately connected the Mississippi’s River Valley’s flora, fauna, and animal resources. (1991 Management Plan, p.27). All of these layers of meaning are found in the mounds.

Bibliography:

Anderson, Duane; Eastern Iowa Prehistory, Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1981

Batalie, Gretchen; David M. Gradwohl, and Charles L.P. Silet; The world between two rivers; perspectives on American Indians in Iowa, Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1978

Birmingham, Robert A; and Leslie E. Eisenbery, Indian Mounds of Wisconsin, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 2000

National Park Service, Effigy mounds: official map and guide: National Monument, Iowa, Department of the Interior, brochure 1995

National Park service, general management plan: Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa, Department of the Interior, 1991

National Park Service, General management plan, environmental assessment: draft: Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa, Department of the Interior, 1990

National Park Service, Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa, Department of the Interior, brochure 1973

O’Bright, Jill York, The perpetual march: an administrative history of Effigy Mounds National Monument, National Park Service Midwest Regional Office, Omaha, 1989