Macalester College DigitalCommons@Macalester College Staff ubP lications Institute for Global Citizenship 5-20-2008 St. Paul's Indian Burial Mounds Paul Nelson Macalester College,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/igcstaffpub Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Nelson, Paul, "St. Paul's Indian Burial Mounds" (2008). Staff Publications. Paper 1. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/igcstaffpub/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Global Citizenship at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Staff ubP lications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. St. Paul’s Indian Burial Mounds -- Paul D. Nelson Six ancient burial mounds crown the park land, protected by law. They are mounds (those still standing), they were crest of St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff. Their fenced and guarded, sealed and mute. probably built in the era 200 BC -- 400 setting is spectacular, above the gorge What can they tell us? AD. Even this spacious estimate rests where the Mississippi feints north be- upon a foundation of guesswork. No ra- fore turning decisively south. These are How many were there originally? diocarbon dating of anything from the the tallest and most prominent burial Theodore H. Lewis found thirty- mounds has been done. The dates are mounds on the northern 600 miles of nine in the late 1870s, in two separate based on similarities between these the river. and perhaps unrelated groups. They mounds and their contents and similar The mounds of Indian Mounds stretched in an irregular line along structures and artifacts found and stud- Park are St.