Historic Mounds Shaped Like Animals – Effigy Mounds National Monument, Harpers Ferry IA [July 2, 2016]

Bear shaped mound - bear shown in profile - head in the foreground, two legs in the back

Pre-historic Native Americans known as the Mound Builders built earthen mounds along the Mississippi River valley.  We saw some in Mississippi several years ago beside the Natchez Trace.  There are some more in Illinois across from St. Louis.  Some of the mounds are huge, and some of them are small.

Another bear shaped mound, looking at the back leg

Most of the Iowa section of the Mississippi Valley is low land with gently rolling hills.  However, around the tiny towns of McGregor and Marquette, Iowa there are 800 foot limestone escarpments looming over the river.  Along the top of these ridges Woodland Indians built mounds shaped like animals between 850 and 1,400 years ago.  In addition to mounds shaped like birds, turtles, lizards, bison and bears the builders left conical and linear mounds.  There were 10,000 of these mounds counted in Iowa and Wisconsin in the early 1900s.  The land was logged or turned into farmland.  100 years later, there were fewer than 1,000 left.  The Effigy Mounds National Monument protects about 200 of these. 

See the back leg in the foreground, and the front leg in the top of the picture

From the parking lot, you hike a steep path with switchbacks to the top of the escarpment.  There are several conical mounds at the bottom of the path with more conical mounds and a few linear mounds at the top.  As you walk further you come to the Small Bear Mound.  The bear is shown in profile, lying on its side.  A bit further down the trail is the Great Bear Mound.  A typical effigy mound is 2 to 4 feet high, 40 feet wide and 80 feet long.  Great Bear is 70 feet wide and 137 feet long.

Linear Mound

The mounds look like they were made to be viewed from above.  As you walk around them you can see the legs, body and head of the bear.  The NPS has mowed around them, so you can see the shapes more clearly.  The photos didn’t come out that well.

McGregor, Iowa

The mounds are in a quiet and lovely location.  A quick hike down short side trails takes you to beautiful overlooks of the Mississippi River.  The location is sacred to the Native American descendants of the mound builders.

Panorama of where the Wisconsin River meets the Mississippi River - from Pikes Peak

We stayed at Pikes Peak State Park, 7 miles down the road from the Effigy Mounds National Monument.  The park is on another escarpment.  They call this area of Iowa the Driftless Area because it escaped glaciation during the last glacier, preserving the tall limestone bluffs along the river.  Zebulon Pike explored this high cliff in 1805 as a possible army fort, a year before he did the same for the peak that bears his name in Colorado.  The escarpment overlooks where the Wisconsin River joins the Mississippi.  The view is spectacular.

Looking North up the Mississippi from Pikes Peak

The Wisconsin River meets the Mississippi River