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 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. Paul’s only visible and tan- Dayton’s Bluff, roughly from the cur- ied elsewhere – to be more specific, gible reminders of a prehistoric human rent Carver’s Cave scenic lookout on that these are from the Middle Wood- past. They have been excavated, but the north to the Indian Mounds Park land period of eastern North America, not for more than a century. They have lookout point on the south. All of the which scholars (though hardly unani- not been systematically studied; mod- twenty-one mounds from Carver’s mously) date between 200 BC and 400 ern methods and scholarship have never Cave up (the land slopes upward) to AD or so. been applied to them. the light beacon in the park were small, The mounds were probably built This article will not bring today’s rarely even two feet tall, and were de- one by one, with perhaps decades or archaeological and anthropological tools stroyed in the mid- and late nineteenth even generations separating them. Con- to Dayton’s Bluff; the author lacks the century by farming, quarrying, devel- struction of the smaller tumuli, those that skill and training. Its aims are more mod- opment, and roads. The southern group trailed down the bluff slope toward est — to gather together all that has of eighteen, built on the promontory 200 Carver’s Cave, likely took place after been written about the St. Paul mounds feet above the Mississippi River, was 1000 AD, and may have continued al- along with the relevant related scholar- reduced to six in the building of Indian most to historical times.2 ship of the last several decades. We Mounds Park, which began in 1892, and hope to answer here, to the extent that in later renovations. The surviving six current knowledge permits, most of the were the tallest and probably the oldest The photo above shows the park and questions that an interested visitor to the of them all.1 Mounds 2, 3, 7, and 9, left to right, mounds might ask. around 1898. Historical Six burial mounds stand atop When Were They Built? Society (MHS) photo. Dayton’s Bluff. They are set aside in Speaking now just of the oldest of southern Minnesota burial mounds were built hundreds of years later than A late 19th century map showing the those still extant at Mounds Park. Da- 18 blufftop mounds. This is all Indian kota connection is more likely for later Mounds Park today. From Aborigines mounds than earlier ones.3 of Minnesota. Do descendants of the ancient St. Paulites live today? Probably so. To conclude otherwise is to imagine that the people – or possibly peoples – who built the mounds went extinct. But where they may live, and what name they call themselves will likely never be known.

Where and how did the live? The mound builders did not live on Dayton’s Bluff. No evidence of ancient habitation has been found there, and for good reason – it was too far from wa- ter. This was ceremonial space. The mound builders must have lived Who Built Them? their ancestors) should be considered nearby, but no one knows exactly American Indians built the burial possible authors of the ancient mounds. where. The man who excavated most mounds. This may be the only asser- “The mound concentrations next to his- of the mounds, Theodore H. Lewis, tion on the subject that can be made torically known Santee villages in east- wrote in 1896 that there had been at with confidence. To connect the St. central and southeastern Minnesota least ten Indian village sites within St. Paul mound builders with any known also argue for a Dakota association with Paul, one at Pig’s Eye Lake, two on tribe or nation exceeds the reach of intensive mound building and a strong, the West Side, “two being located on current knowledge. early Dakota presence in southern Min- Phalen’s creek and the others along the Of the two dominant nations nesota unless, of course, the Dakota river.” He did not provide more detail, known to live near St. Paul in historical simply reoccupied locations of the prin- and none of these sites has been found times, the Ojibwe and the Dakota, one cipal mound-building groups.” This is and excavated. Nor, after more 150 can be eliminated: The Ojibwe moved evidence primarily by association; no years of development of the land and into Minnesota from the east over a ethnographic or physical evidence filling of the river channel, are any likely thousand years after the surviving places Dakota forebears at Mounds to be unearthed.4 mounds were built, and in any event Park. What is more, the huge majority The area around what is now never lived so far south. The Dakota cannot be eliminated as mound builders, but neither is there any strong evidence to connect them with mounds built in the period two thousand years ago. Little is known about their ancient origins. The conven- tional view is that the Dakota home- land lay in northern Minnesota around Lake Mille Lacs, and that they moved into this area only, or at least mainly, as a result of friction with the Ojibwe in the late 17th century. Scott Anfinson, recently appointed The northernmost line of mounds, around 1880. North is to the left; Hoffman Minnesota State Archaeologist, wrote Avenue is now Mounds Boulevard, here between Educlid on the left and Urban over 20 years ago that the Dakota (or on the right. These mounds are all gone. Map from Aborigines of Minnesota. downtown St. Paul was probably a many of them were there? Estimating good place to live two millennia ago (at populations for such a far-off time is so least, like today, for the hardy of body perilous an enterprise that few try; no and spirit.) The Midwesterners of that estimate for this area has been done. distant era favored flood plains and David Braun, one of the leading schol- river terraces close to woodlands and ars of the Middle Woodland period (200 open ground; a variety of habitats within BC – 400 AD), has commented that a small area could provide food through- even in the most populous regions of out the year. The Dayton’s Bluff vicin- the ancient Midwest, western Illinois ity had everything. The Mississippi then and southern Ohio, densities were “on offered a bounty we can only imagine the order of only 40 people per 100 sq. today; unpolluted and undammed, it km, with the larger villages containing brimmed with wildlife, and its yearly no more than 50-100 people.” Other flooding and ebbing created seasonal scholars come in higher, at 100 to 200 mini-environments, each with its own per 100 square kilometers. Let us use, plants and animals. Just beneath the for the sake of illustration, Benn’s fig- Trout Brook and Phalen Creek join the bluff Phalen Creek and Trout Brook, ures (though densities in chilly south- Mississippi near the mounds. both good-sized streams, joined and ern Minnesota were almost certainly flowed into the Mississippi from the lower than Illinois and Ohio.) The area the builders made. This was by far the north, beneath today’s Seventh and of Ramsey County is 441 km. sq.; add commonest shape for mounds of this Third Street bridges; to the south lay to that, again for illustration, the area of Middle Woodland era, but not earlier or the shallow wetlands of the backwater adjoining Dakota County, and we have later eras. The symbolism seems clear: Pig’s Eye Lake. Across the river lay a hypothetical hinterland of 1960 km. the sun, the moon, and the horizon all the West Side floodplain, which had its sq. This would yield, by Benn’s esti- form circles, and so the mounds begin own creeks and wetlands. And above, mate, a population of 784 people living with an eternal, life-giving shape. on both sides of the river, spread the in eight to eighteen villages or camps.7 Middle Woodland mounds tend to open oak savannah.5 Could so few people have built a look alike, the most apparent variables The people who built the surviving Mounds Park mound? Certainly yes. being height and diameter. But exterior Mounds Park mounds were hunters and These are not the pyramids at Giza or sameness hides an enormous variety of gatherers. Prehistoric St. Paul offered Teotihuacan. The building of each more interior features – soils, structures, ex- them abundant deer, fish, shellfish, wa- resembled an Amish barn-raising – a cavations, and layers. terfowl, acorns, wild fruits, and a host strenuous (and community-building) As we shall see, the Mounds Park of smaller animals and edible plants. project but not a work of great engi- mounds, so similar in appearance, are They did not have agriculture, though neering or stupendous effort. not at all the same on the inside. Some they might have encouraged the growth were built on the original surface, oth- of certain native seed-bearing plants How Were They Built? ers over hardened fire pits, wooden such as chenopod, knotweed, On one level, how they were built burial chambers, and stone chambers. sumpweed, and maygrass. They did not is simple enough. People usually While one would suppose that the live in permanent villages, but moved scraped away the surface sod in the mound fill consists of simple Dayton’s with the seasons, probably much like desired shape of the base, did what- Bluff earth, this is not quite the case: the Dakota of historical ever more surface preparation they several of the fills contained foundations times did.6 desired, then piled up loads of earth, or layers of extraneous stuff carried in The Indians of this time and place probably carried in baskets, until they from elsewhere. Several, too, had boul- used tools well known to most people were satisfied. If the base was circu- ders placed inside them. There is more familiar with the basics of Native lar, a conical shape resulted naturally to them than meets the eye.8 American history – spear, bone and from dumping fill at the center and let- antler, stone axes, hammers, scrapers, ting it flow toward the edges. Why were they built? and projectile points. They were famil- All but two of the Mounds Park The mounds probably served three iar with worked metal, copper, both as tumuli were circular and conical, but purposes. First and most obvious, they ornament and tools. They also made they did not have to be this way. Thou- housed the bodies of the dead. They pottery and baskets. sands of Midwestern burial mounds were not, however, cemeteries as we The people who built the mounds were oval, linear, or shaped in animal think of them. There were far too few lived around here somewhere. How forms. No, a circular base was a choice buried in them for them to have served In the ballpark, though It would be more accu- 1500 years ago pushes Text of the Mounds Park Historical Marker rate to say, a resting the limits; 400 A.D. is place for some of their a more likely date for dead. Only a few were the latest construction. Between 1500 and 2000 years ago, Indian people chose chosen for mound inter- All date foundations this high bluff above the Mississippi river as the resting place ment, and no one are shaky. knows for sure how or for their dead. The impressive burial mounds built over a why. period of many years remind us of the diverse peoples and There is no evidence of cultures that flourished here long before the first European diversity one way or There is no evidence that explorers arrived in the late 1600s. another.The mounds the mound builders might have been built by moved to this area from one group or various. No the east. Archeologists today believe that the original builders of these one knows. mounds may have been a Hopewellian culture similar to This is probably a refer- groups in the Ohio River valley. These people probably More likely a local cul- ture that absorbed some ence to certain grave moved west into the eastern edge of present day Minne- goods found in the Hopewellian influences mounds. These were sota about 400 A.D. and were eventually assimilated into from Illinois. probably not made by other regional groups. Artifacts recovered in 19th century the mound builders, and in any case were not im- excavations show that the builders had exceptional artistic pressive compared to skills and a complex social structure. grave goods found else- where. as the final resting place for everyone as territorial markers. The tallest of the in death did so because of their deeds in even a small community. They cov- St. Paul mounds were among the most (or other purely individual characteris- ered the remains of just a few. prominent of any along the Upper Mis- tics) rather than elite status. The mounds likely served ceremo- sissippi, and whether they marked off The Mounds Park remains do noth- nial functions having to do with group territory good at producing food or just ing to help resolve the debate. Around identity, solidarity, and religion. We re- a place of ceremonial importance, they 20 substantially complete (though often ally know nothing about how the mound surely carried this message: This land headless) skeletons were found in the builders identified themselves as against is ours.10 mounds – primary burials – and frag- the rest of the world, but they almost ments of around thirty more, though any certainly had regular contact with Who Was Buried in Them? count of individuals based on fragments people from other groups or societies. The question of why particular is an educated guess at best. Two of Whether friendly or rivalrous, contact people were buried in mounds like these the fragmentary remains – a jawbone with people different from themselves has perplexed and animated archeolo- and a skull — were believed to be those was likely to heighten the imperative of gists and anthropologists for more than of children. Some of these remains self-definition. The building of mounds a century. To simplify the debate a bit, were probably instrusive burials, that is, and burials of the dead provided excel- some believe that people buried in dug into the mounds after – sometimes lent opportunities for people to gather, mounds, especially those buried with centuries after — they were built. We work on common projects, and in so fine grave goods, must have been mem- do not know the ages or sexes of any doing reaffirm group/clan/lineal identi- bers of an elite class– and therefore of the people buried in the mounds; the ties. Thus people from scattered com- that the societies they came from had science to determine such things was munities or settlements in this general status divisions. Others argue that these not available to T.H. Lewis and his col- area likely converged at Dayton’s Bluff ancient mound-building societies were leagues, and none of these remains is from time to time to reaffirm what they too small and scattered to have much available for testing today. had in common.9 class division, and therefore it is more A tall mound placed on the edge of The mounds probably served also likely that those given special treatment a precipice overlooking a river – such as all of the surviving Mounds park cavated. It is, or was, twelve feet tall scribe the find: structures — places the remains of the with a 60-foot diameter. If truly un- About one foot further to the east dead between water and the heavens. touched, it is the only Mounds Park of these [the four crushed skulls The mound itself does something simi- mound still in its original state. It stands mentioned above] was the seventh lar, rising from a circular base toward right on the edge of the bluff looking skull, which proved to be a rare find, the sky. Though we cannot know the due south. indeed I know nothing similar ever minds of the ancients, it seems clear Mound No. 3 (extant.) Originally having been found in the mounds or that burial in one of these mounds was eight feet tall (by another estimate ten), ancient graves. The facial bones of charged with significance and would it appears to have been built directly on the skull in question had been cov- have been reserved for an important the surface (some, in contrast, began ered with red clay, thus producing few. But the question of how these an- with excavation below surface level.) an image of the original face. . . . . cient people determined importance is Charles DeMontreville, an ama- From the size of the skull and the beyond resolution right now; the mound teur scholar and historian, dug into this teeth it is evident that it belonged to builders probably felt no need to behave one in 1867, and Theodore Lewis fol- a child about five years of age.12 in ways that conformed to today’s theo- lowed in 1882. DeMontreville found a Mound No. 4 (destroyed 1895.) ries of their beliefs and practices.11 cluster of skulls three to six feet west This one was very small, about thirty of the mound center, and about six feet inches in height. Alone among the What Was in Them? down from the top (that is, about two Dayton’s Bluff mounds, it had an “el- This question must be answered feet above the original surface.) (This liptical approach” ten feet wide, sixteen with a prominent qualifier. The mounds off-center placement was common.) feet long, and two feet tall. One skel- were excavated by 19th century inves- Lewis found a cranium near the cen- eton, a primary burial, and some bones tigators, some of them amateurs in their ter, about 3.3 down from the top, a clus- of a secondary burial were found in the day, all of them amateurs by today’s ter of four crushed skulls several feet mound, along with two mussel shells standards. The first digs took place in to the east at the same level, cremated placed directly atop it. Another burial, 1856, the last in 1891 (except for an remains at the same level a few feet with mussel shells, was found in the accidental dig in 1895.) These are the away, and two boulders atop some frag- approach structure at about the level digs for which we have records. Hob- ments of remains near the base. Scat- of the original grade. Excavated by byists and looters may have started be- tered human bone fragments and mus- Lewis in 1882. fore 1856 and kept at their work with sel shells were found throughout the Mound No. 5 (destroyed 1895.) more persistence than the scholars. mound fill. The placement of the vari- The original dimensions of this mound Whatever they took is lost for good. We ous skulls and other bone pieces sug- are not recorded. There were two head- do not know what objects were carried gests that they were not all buried at less skeletons and two mussel shells away in the night or missed due to care- the same time. inside, probably at around the level of less excavation. Lewis also found an item unique in the original surface. Excavated by The early students of the mounds Minnesota archeological lore. We will DeMontreville in 1867. gave them identifying numbers, start- let him, writing fifteen years later, de- Mound No. 6 (destroyed 1895.) ing with No. 1, the southernmost, and proceeding north along the bluff (to- ward downtown) through No. 18. These numbers remain in use even though only six mounds survive. We will proceed here, one by one, summarizing what is known about each one and sig- naling which mounds still exist. Mound No. 1 (destroyed 1895.) This was the second-smallest of the blufftop mounds, just two feet tall with a 23-foot diameter. Excavated in 1882 by Theodore H. Lewis. Parts of three skeletons and eleven mussel shells were found inside. Its dimensions were very common for Middle Woodland mounds. Mound No. 2 (extant.) Never ex- Mounds Two and Three in 1898, MHS photo. The smallest, a foot tall and 18 feet in higher level than the bones of the diameter. Sparse contents: two human legs. Directly beneath this skeleton bones, a stone tool, a mussel shell, and lay another, crosswise, it seemed, of an arrowhead, all found at or below the the pit. The third and fourth skel- original surface. Excavated by Lewis etons were still lower down, though in 1882. not entirely separated from them by Mound No. 7 (extant.) Originally a layer of earth. twelve feet high and 70 feet in diam- eter, Lewis and colleague William Gross They also recovered two breastplates dug into this one in 1879. Near the of hammered copper. These finds mound center, seven feet down from caused quite a stir, and the superinten- the apex, they found first a bone awl. dent of parks took custody of the arti- Beneath it, a stake about two feet long, facts. They have since disappeared. three inches in diameter, pointed on the If the measurements were correct, bottom, apparently driven down into the this mound featured a burial pit some fill. Two feet further down, near the eighteen inches beneath the original original surface, they found a burial Ceramic vessel found in a grade and floored with clay. The buri- chamber. Mounds Park mound. als appear to be “in the flesh,” and not The chamber consisted of five MHS image. at all likely to have been “cast roughly wood poles or planks, eight feet long, into the pit.” The presence of the rela- laid side by side but not adjoining, sepa- tively rare copper ornaments refutes rated each several inches from the 1895, city park workers, razing Mound that notion.14 other. They were positioned on a north- 8 to improve the view from the park Mound No. 9 (extant.) This was south axis. Seven small boulders had road, came upon “a gruesome find”: and is the tallest of the mounds. Most been placed atop the central plank. Several tons of earth had been re- of the early writers gave its height as Under the wood they found a layer of moved before the center of the fifteen feet; one (its first excavator, Ed- black loam earth and a few scattered mound was reached. The four skel- ward Duffield Neill) estimated eighteen. human bones – a well-preserved thigh etons were found together at a depth This one appears to have been built on bone, part of an arm bone, and one ver- of about six feet from the top of the a natural rise at the most prominent tebra. Below this layer, ash and char- mound. They were embedded in the point of Dayton’s Bluff, on the edge coal, below that, five inches of hard original clay. When the dirt had been with a commanding view of the gorge. yellow clay, packed and apparently cleared so the remains could be No. 9 yielded surprisingly little to hardened by fire. And beneath this, six seen, it appeared evident that the investigators. Dr. Neill, who cracked it inches of loose, sandy clay containing bodies had been cast roughly into open in 1856, found just fragments of a some teeth and fragments of shell-tem- the pit. There were really three lay- skull rather high up. An 1862 dig, by pered pottery. This was a simple but ers of bones, as though one body Hill and Kelley, found an oar-shaped carefully constructed burial chamber or had been thrown in above the other. layer of clay, about 15 inches thick, crypt.13 The one found first appeared to have about halfway down from the peak. Mound No. 8 (destroyed 1895.) been in a reclining position. The They also found one human jawbone, It was an oval four and a half feet tall, skull, vertebrae and ribs were on a believed to be that of a child, three feet 28 feet in diameter, and built over a fire up from the original surface. This pit some fifteen inches below the earth mound was probably also the first one surface; and about two feet above the built. Scholars have concluded from former pit, a layer of red earth or ocher. studying other sites from this era that When Alfred J. Hill and William Kelley the first mounds were often placed on dug into No. 8 in 1866 they found just a the most prominent spot and had few few human remains, but also a ceramic burials in them. This description fits No. pipe and “a large number of sea shell 9 precisely. It may have stood alone on beads closely packed together” as Dayton’s Bluff for many years. though forming a bracelet. Mound No. 10 (destroyed.) No. Only four complete skeletons have 10 yielded just a little more than No. 9: been found on Dayton’s Bluff, all of DeMontreville’s diagram of his one cranium with a them by accident. On September 20, 1866 dig in Mound 3. nearby, four feet from the top, and an- other at the same level a several feet to the west. These, clearly, were sec- ondary burials. Just above the original surface, there was a layer of ash and charcoal two or three inches thick. This mound was ten feet tall with a diam- eter of 46 feet. Excavated by Lewis in 1882. Mound No. 11 (destroyed 1895.) This was another small one, just 18 inches. It had a skeleton, probably a primary burial, two mussel shells, and some small boulders inside. Excavated by Lewis in 1882. Mound No. 12 (extant.) Origi- nally eight and a half feet tall, this one had a basement. The builders dug three feet below the original surface to fash- ion eight chambers, called cists by the The stone chambers beneath Mound 12. archeologists, of upright limestone slabs. These in turn were covered by with seventeen mussel shells and five appeared barely perceptible rises in the limestone slabs, then boulders, followed mussel shell spoons. Excavated by earth; from a monument-presentation by a seven-foot-long ridge of sandy Lewis in 1883. perspective, they likely would have con- clay. Each of the chambers had been Mound No. 15 (destroyed.) Four fused the public more than enlightened. filled with black loam and contained a and a half feet tall, built over a pit five Removing the smaller, vaguer mounds few bones lying on the bottom, a piece feet in diameter, two and a half feet emphasized (and emphasizes still) the of skull and a leg bone. Parts of twelve deep, and filled with river sand. A skull bigger ones.15 bodies in all were found. All were sec- and parts of three skeletons were found ondary burials. Some of the chambers here too, and one arrowhead. What Do These Mound Features also contained grave goods: twelve Mound No. 16 (destroyed 1905.) Tell Us? limestone arrowheads, a bear tooth, a Mound 16, a bare rise in the earth 28 The Fill. It isn’t just dirt. Or, it is chunk of lead ore, a piece of red clay, feet in diameter and 18 inches tall, was just dirt, but it has something to tell us and a copper ornament. Lewis de- built over a six-inch pit and a layer of just the same. Every fill element intro- scribed the ornament thus: “oval in out- black loam in which were found parts duced into the mounds was done so for line, flat on one side and convex on the of three skeletons and twenty-two mus- a reason, probably a religious (or at least other, with a small hole on each end for sel shells. spiritual) one. inserting a string. It is made of a thin Mound No. 17 (destroyed 1895.) In these mounds we see a variety sheet of hammered copper, the edges Just like No. 16. No. 17, also 18 inches of bases and fills: sand, sandy clay, of which were notched in order to fit tall, was built atop a subsoil foundation packed clay, red ocher, charcoal and around a wooden pattern of oval shape.” of limestone slabs. Bone fragments and ash. Some of the clays were soft, oth- Nearly all of the chambers also con- arrowheads. ers fire-hardened. All of the mounds tained mussel shells. Excavated by Mound No. 18 (destroyed 1862.) also contained mussel shells or shell Lewis in1882. Just like 16 and 17. fragments. All of these had to be car- Mound No. 13 (destroyed.) Num- This listing of mound dimensions ried to the site at some cost of time and ber 13 was unusual. Just four feet tall, makes clear that though St. Paul city effort; they had to be important. Such it contained six boulders placed over a park planners were responsible for lev- elements were common in burial cranium, and beneath these features, at eling most of the Dayton’s Bluff mounds of this vintage all over the Mid- or slightly below ground level, two mounds, they did so with discrimination. west, though there was no consistent headless skeletons apparently lying on Whether they knew it or not, by pre- pattern. Clays, river sands, even ashes their sides facing one another. Exca- serving the tallest of the mounds, they are all believed to be symbolic refer- vated by Lewis in 1882. preserved the oldest and most interest- ences to water, and mussel shells must Mound No. 14 (destroyed.) Five ing ones. The smallest ones – Nos. 1, fall into the same category. Some be- feet tall, and five skeletons inside, along 4, 5, 6, 16, 17, and 18 – would have lieve them to relate to a common wa- ter-diver creation story, in which the represented, buried in a variety of brought at once, or that the chambers earth was formed from mud drudged ways. Some burials are clearly primary, were filled in over a long period of time from the bottom of a lake or river. that is, buried in the flesh; these are before being sealed and the mound built These humble fills, then, tell us that skeletons. Others are secondary, and atop. There were also intrusive burials, at least some of the Mounds Park usually fragmentary. Those, for ex- that is, remains inserted into the mounds mounds were used in mortuary ceremo- ample, in the limestone chambers of after they had been built, perhaps hun- nies that probably involved rebirth and Mound No. 8, consisted of just a hand- dreds of years later. renewal. ful of fragments each. The people had The Artifacts. Most were unre- The Human Remains. Few were been de-fleshed elsewhere, either by markable, projectile points and the like. recovered, none has been scientifically burial or exposure to the elements, then A handful, though, put the historical studied, and none is available now for brought to the mounds for final inter- imagination into gear. The copper or- examination. Adults and children are ment. It may be that all eight were naments, lumps of lead, marine shell

The Great Excavator: sure, sketch, and investigate burial Sunday pastime.) The standard method Theodore Hayes Lewis mounds and other structures, mostly in was to cut a wide trench from the top the Upper Midwest. As Charles Keyes center down to the original grade, ex- wrote in 1928, “Nearly fifty-four thou- tract artifacts and remains, then fill the sand miles of travel and more than ten thing back in. With smaller mounds, thousand of these on foot!” And not just Lewis sometimes did two or three in a travel: locating the mounds, pestering single day. landowners for permission, slogging Lewis published a great many ar- through field and forest in all weather, ticles – about sixty according to Fred then taking whatever shelter might be A. Finney’s compilation – but almost at hand for the night. And then writing nothing after leaving St. Paul in 1905. it all up: the solitary work of an obses- Lewis lived in Colorado for a time sive. and then St. Louis, where he apparently Lewis’s achievement was titanic. ran a newsstand. He never married. He documented perhaps as many as Lewis died in the St. Louis poor house 17,000 burial mounds, including almost in 1930 and was buried in a potter’s 7,700 in Minnesota, over 4,000 in Wis- field. It is a cliché but true; the man died consin, almost 800 in Iowa, 700 in South alone, impoverished and forgotten, but Dakota, and about 600 each in North his work lives on, admired as never be- Dakota and Illinois. He and Hill planned fore. Without Theodore Hayes Lewis, Most of what we know about the to publish their findings, but Hill died in inestimable knowledge of ancient Dayton’s Bluff mounds we know be- 1895 without leaving money to complete America would have been lost. cause of one man, Theodore H. Lewis. the project. Jacob Brower took it up then Born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1856, to a limited degree, but Brower died in Sources: Scott F. Anfinson, “Cultural and he spent a few years as a young man 1905. Whether coincidentally or not, Natural Aspects of Mound Distribution in at Chillicothe, Ohio, near some of the Lewis left St. Paul in 1905 also. The Minnesota,” Minnesota Archaeologist greatest of all North American Indian Northwestern Archaeological Survey (1984); Robert A. Birmingham and Leslie earthworks. There he caught the ar- has never been published, though it did Eisenberg, Indian Mounds of Wisconsin chaeology bug. Lewis moved to St. Paul lead to A.N. Winchell’s Aborigines of (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, in 1878. Minnesota, published in 1911 and still 2000); Fred A. Finney, “The 1860-1873 In 1880 he met Alfred Hill, an En- a remarkable work; it comprises the Mounds Survey Made by Alfred J. Hill in glishman, civil engineer, real estate in- Minnesota portion of the survey. Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota” vestor, and amateur archeologist who Lewis, sometimes alone, sometimes Minnesota Archaeologist 64 (2005): 145- had settled in St. Paul. The formed a with a collaborator, excavated thirteen 151; Fred A. Finney, “Theodore H. Lewis partnership to produce the Northwest- of the eighteen mounds atop Dayton’s (1856-1930): An Obituary,” Minnesota Ar- ern Archeological Survey, with the goal Bluff and many of the smaller ones that chaeologist 64 (2005): 11-20; Charles R. of documenting and preserving the an- trailed down toward Carver’s Cave, Keyes, “The Hill-Lewis Archaeological Sur- cient earthworks of the Mississippi Val- mostly in the 1880s. He was a careful vey,” Minnesota History (June, 1928): 96- ley. archeologist for his time (a time when 108. Hill paid Lewis $3 a day to find, mea- digging into a mound was a respectable beads, and bear tooth, are all typical eral rule, the farther away, the weaker International Falls) or Wisconsin, the objects of the ancient exchange net- the Hopewell effect. states that rank second and first, re- work known as (and so named by twen- The copper ornaments, lumps of spectively, in numbers of American In- tieth-century scholars) the Hopewell In- lead, the perforated bear tooth, and dian burial earthworks. We cannot teraction Sphere. This was a network marine shells found at Mounds Park are know what importance the ancients of astonishing scope, covering nearly all typical objects of the Hopewell Inter- found in the height of mounds, but the of the eastern half of what is now the action Sphere. What their presence tells taller the mound the greater the com- United States. The objects that traveled us, then, is that Hopewell influence munity effort, and certainly human be- in this network were mostly finished reached this far, probably having made ings everywhere have built tall for reli- goods: obsidian from Montana and its way up the Mississippi from Illinois. gious reasons. We cannot know, either, Idaho, copper from Michigan, lead from In fact, the St. Paul site (along with the extent to which the mound builders Illinois, shells from Florida, mica from another at Howard Lake in anoka knew what other people in the region the Southeast. Some of these objects County) represents precisely the far were doing. Did they think, “Let’s build were extremely fine. northwest limit of the Hopewellian. Put one bigger than anyone else?” The finest came from southern another way, the ancient St. Paulites What we do know is that they did Ohio, from earthworks excavated on participated in the Hopewell Sphere as build the biggest; not only the biggest, the farm of one E.C. Hopewell. Burial the most distant of outliers. The grave the last – there are simply no ancient mounds there yielded mica cut in the goods recovered at Dayton’s Bluff are burial mounds along the Mississippi shapes of stylized hands and faces; notably fewer and humbler than similar River upstream of Indian Mounds Park. enormous ceremonial obsidian blades; items found in mounds of the same era, There were thousands built north of St. more blades of fine chert. Southern not far away, at Trempealeau, Wiscon- Paul, mostly around lakes and smaller Ohio was proved to be one center of a sin, and northeastern Iowa. rivers, but not along the Mississippi. culture that flourished around 200 BC This relative poverty of mortuary If, as the weight of expert opinion to 400 AD. A second center was later offerings may have had various causes. supports, the surviving Dayton’s Bluff found along the Illinois River Valley The people may simply have been mounds were built by participants in the near its confluence with the Mississippi. poorer and fewer than those further Hopewell phenomenon, then David This one is called Havana-Hopewell, south, hence less attractive recipients Braun (though not writing about this named for a town nearby. The beliefs of impressive gifts. Living so far from region specifically) offers a possible and artistic styles of these peoples the Havana-Hopewell center in Illinois, view of the society from which the proved to be enormously powerful and it is possible that distance drained vigor mounds arose: persuasive throughout the ancient Mid- from the Hopewell influences as they The picture emerging of the local west and Upper South. passed from one people to another. organizational base for the Hopewellian The items traveled by exchange, Perhaps, too, the local people found inter-regional network, then, is not one of sorts, from one people to another, but Hopewell ideas and practices less com- of great complexity. The ingredients – not in trade in a commercial sense. They pelling. Or they picked and chose: im- weakly to moderately developed village probably traveled by gift (a “prestige pressive mounds, yes, rich grave goods, segmental organization, weakly to mod- chain” in the words of one scholar), and no.16 erately developed regular pan-residen- may have taken many years to travel The shape and placement of the tial ritual, personal dominance within across the continent. They may have mounds themselves. and perhaps differential dominance changed hands in diplomacy between The mounds were built right on the among local social segments, an ab- peoples, and then in ceremonial gift-giv- edge of Dayton’s Bluff. From below – sence of consistent symbols of hierar- ing within societies, before ending up and below, along the river, is where chical gradation, a mixed hunting-gath- as grave offerings. people would have lived – they would ering-gardening subsistence system, Archaeologists have traced appear positioned between the earth and modest densities of population re- Hopewell influences from culture to and the heavens. The mound itself rose siding in relatively small villages – are culture, site to site, mound complex to from the earth toward the heavens, and familiar ones, even if their patterns of mound complex. Certain patterns are its internal structure often repeated the combination here are peculiarly east- clear. One is that the various peoples theme, with subterranean chambers and ern North American.17 and cultures that encountered Hopewell layers of fill suggesting water. styles and ideas reacted differently, These mounds, especially No. 9, Will We Ever Know More Than adopting some aspects, rejecting oth- are the tallest ever known to have ex- We Know Today? ers. The second is that distance from isted in Minnesota (except for the one- Probably not. Archaeology and an- Hopewell centers mattered; as a gen- of-a-kind, 45-foot Grand Mound near cient American anthropology will con- tinue to advance, and some develop- mate, congenial. We live far from the eteries, Mounds, and Sacred Landscapes ments may bear on our St. Paul site. centers of culture (in our case national, of the Ancient North American But with the mounds’ artifacts scattered in their case regional), but we partici- Midcontinent,” in Wendy Ashmore and A. and lost, the human remains lost too, pate in the whole. We stand a bit apart Bernard Knapp, eds., Archaeologies of and the data from the mounds so flawed from the rest of our society, picking and Landscape, Contemporary Perspectives and incomplete, there is not much grist choosing (or so we like to think) those (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999), 202-227.] for the scholarly mill. elements of it that suit us best, just as “Middle Woodland, or Hopewellian, Most archeological attention in this our mound-building predecessors picked peoples again turned to the bluff crest, field has shifted away from mounds and and chose from the great Hopewell where formally organized communities cem- toward habitation sites. No habitation cornucopia. We are both peripheral and eteries led, over time, to the creation of sites related to the St. Paul mounds are integral, and we like it that way. mound clusters arranged in linear fashion. likely to be found after nearly 150 years The earliest mounds tended to be posi- of urban development. Acknowledgments: I want to thank tioned nearest the valley on the most promi- Only the excavation of the suppos- John Fino for his assistance and helpful nent natural feature, with the more recent, edly untouched Mound No. 2 might comments, especially in the early stages frequently larger structures in less con- yield something new. Such an event is of this project; Daniel Cagley and spicuous locations.” 212. On Dayton’s extremely unlikely. It would require an Patricia Emerson of the Minnesota His- Bluff the four tallest, Nos. 9, 7, 3, and 2, archaeologist with a conviction in its im- torical Society for their help in learning stand right on the bluff edge. Winchell, Ab- portance, funding to match, and the po- what became of artifacts from the origines of Minnesota, 262. Personal com- mounds; Alan Woolworth for his infor- litical skills to fight through the restric- munication with Tim Wahl of the Minne- mation and guidance; State Archaeolo- tions and prohibitions of statutory pro- sota Geological Survey, 5 Dec. 2006: gist Scott Anfinson and Professor Kelli tections, not to mention the local oppo- \blufftop elevation, 880 ft., average river Carmean of Eastern Kentucky Univer- sition such a project would incite. This elevation, 687 ft. above sea level. sity for reviewing the manuscript and 2 Brian Fagan, Ancient North America, The is not going to happen, and that may be saving me from various blunders; Ellen for the best. Holt-Werle, Macalester College Archi- Archaeology of a Continent (London: vist, Susan Otto from the Milwaukee Thames & Hudson, 1996), 369, places it 200 What Do Our St. Paul Mounds Tell Public Museum; and the staff of the St. BC – 400 AD, but this is a general state- Us? Paul Public Library for their invaluable ment for all of eastern North America. Rob- The mounds remind us that where assistance through inter-library loan. ert A. Birmingham and Leslie E. Eisenberg, we live today, others lived two thousand Indian Mounds of Wisconsin (Madison: years before. There were probably rela- Citations University of Wisconsin Press, 2000): 92, tively few of them, but they did not live date the Middle Woodland at 100 BC - 500 in isolation. They traded ideas with 1 T. H. Lewis, “Pre-Historic Remains at St. AD. They observe also, however, that the people nearby and far away, and par- Paul,” American Antiquarian 18(4) (July building of large earthworks in North ticipated in a wider regional culture. We 1896): 207-210, quote at 207. Lewis here America ended between 200 and 400 AD: do not know who they were or what specified: “In 1878 there were four groups p. 98. In Stuart Struever, The Hopewell In- became of them, and we probably never of mounds located on the east side of the teraction Sphere in Riverine-Western Great will. river with a total of fifty-eight mounds of Lakes Culture History, Illinois State Mu- We can guess that they responded all classes.” Of these, eighteen stood atop seum, Scientific Papers, Vol XII, No. 3 85106, to the beauty of the river valley much the bluff, and thirty-two trailed down to- Streuver dates the Middle Woodland in this like we do. We know that they honored ward Carver’s Cave. A map published in N. area at 400 BC to 350 AD, and the Hopewll their dead, at least some of them, with H. Winchell, The Aborigines of Minnesota period to 100 BC -- 350 AD. Douglas K. monuments, and built religious struc- (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, Charles, “Woodland Demographics and tures up toward the sky. We do the 1911): 265, shows the northernmost most Social Dynamics in the American Midwest: same. Still, their hunting-gathering near Euclid St., a few hundred yards north An Analysis of a Burial Mounds Survey,” ways, their religion and their ceremo- of the Carver’s Cave lookout and marker. World Archaeology 24(2) (1992): 175-197, nies, are incomprehensible to us – just The bluffline there has been mostly cov- 186: Constance M. Arzigian and Katherine as our ways and beliefs would be to ered by roads. T. H. Lewis, “Mounds and P. Stevenson, Minnesota’s Indian Mounds them. Stone Cists at St. Paul, Minnesota,” Ameri- and Burial Sites: A Synthesis of Prehis- The chasm between us and them, can Antiquarian 18(4) (July, 1896): 314-320 toric and Early Archaeological Data (St. in time and in mind, is unbridgeable. And (dates of his count and destruction by Paul: Minnesota Office of the State Archae- yet we and they have something in com- quarrying.) Jane E. Buikstra and Douglas ologist, 2003), gives a range of Middle mon. We find this place, despite the cli- K. Charles, “Centering the Ancestors: Cem- Woodland in Minnesota as from 400 BC (Howard Lake) to 700 AD (Laurel), with the versity Press, 1979): 122-139, 124. The area Hopewell Society,” in Recreating Hopewell period (including Mounds Park) around St. Paul was glaciated, but in many Hopewell , 3-25, 6: as 200 BC -- 300 AD, pp. 84-91.“An impor- other ways similar to southwest Wiscon- 10 Jane E. Buikstra and Douglas K. Charles, tant corollary is that only one mound ap- sin. Benn, “Some Trends and Traditions,” “Centering the Ancestors: Cemeteries, pears to have been in use at a site at any 47-82. Mounds, and Sacred Landscapes of the given time throughout the Archaic and 6 Guy C. Gibbon and Christy A. H. Caine, Ancient North American Midcontinent,” Woodland periods.” “The Middle Woodland to Late Woodland in Wendy Ashmore and A. Bernard Knapp, 3 Duane Champagne, Chronology of Na- Transition in Eastern Minnesota,” eds., Archaeologies of Landscape, Con- tive North American History: from Pre- Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, temporary Perspectives (Malden, Mass.: Columbian Times to the Present, (Detroit: 5(1) (1980), 57-71, quote 60-61. Benn, “Some Blackwell, 1999), 202-227. Douglas K. Gale Research, 1994): 66. Scott R. Anfinson, Trends and Traditions,” 47-82; Richard W. Charles, “Woodland Demographics and “Cultural and Natural Aspects of Mound Yerkes, “Hopewell Tribes: A Study of Social Dynamics in the American Midwest: Distribution in Minnesota,” Minnesota Ar- Middle Woodland Social Organization in Analysis of a Burial Mounds Survey,” chaeologist 43(1) (Spring 1984): 3-31. 27- the Ohio Valley,” in William A. Parkinson, World Archaeology, 24(2) (1992), 175-197. 28. Gary Clayton Anderson, “Early Dakota ed., The Archaeology of Tribal Societies Robert A. Birmingham and Leslie E. Migration and Intertribal War: A Revision,” (Ann Arbor: Archeological Series, No. 15, Eisenberg, Indian Mounds of Wisconsin Western Historical Quarterly 11(1) (Janu- International Monographs in Prehistory, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, ary 1980): 17-36. U.S. Department of the In- 2002), 227-240, 235-237 (knotweed, goose- 2000): 77. A. Martin Byers, The Earthwork/ terior, Precontact American Indian foot, sunflower, chenopodium, maygrass in Habitation Dichotomy,” in Recreating Earthworks Minnesota, Section E, “State- Eastern North America generally. He cites: Hopewell, 62-73. ment of Historic Contexts,” 6-7 (early Dee Anne Wymer, “Cultural Change and 11 Joseph A. Tainter, “Woodland Social Dakaota history in Minnesota.) Arzigian Subsistence: The Middle Woodland and Change in the Central Midwest: A Review and Stevenson, Minnesota’s Indian Late Woodland Transition in the Mid-Ohio and Evaluation of Interpretive Trends,” Mounds, 116 (early Dakota history.) Valley,” in C. Margaret Scarry, ed., Forag- North American Archaeologist, Vol. 4 (2) 4 T. H. Lewis, “Pre-Historic Remains at St. ing and Farming in the Eastern Woodlands (1983), 141-161. James. A. Brown, The Paul,” 207. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, Shamanic Element in Hopewellian Period 5 David W. Benn, “Some Trends and Tra- 1993): 138-156, 148. Burial,” in Recreating Hopewell, 475-488, ditions in the Woodland Cultures of the 7 David P. Braun, “Midwestern 488. Quad-State Region in the Upper Mississippi Hopewellian Exchange and Supralocal In- 12 T.H. Lewis, “Mounds and Stone Cists,” River Basin,” Wisconsin Archaeologist 60 teraction,” in Colin Renfrew and John F. 315-316. (1) (1979), 49; John O. Anfinson, The River Cherry, ed., Peer Polity Interaction and 13 Havana ware was grit tempered, We Have Wrought (Minneapolis: University Socio-Political Change (Cambridge: Cam- Hopewell ware limestone tempered. Shell- of Minnesota Press, 2003), nicely describes bridge University Press, 1986), 117-126, tempered pottery seems to have been rare. the Mississippi before its human re-engi- quote at 119. Paul J. Pacheco and William Lewis, unfortunately, was not much inter- neering, at pp. 9-22. Writing of the “driftless S. Dancey, “Integrating Mortuary and ested in pottery; modern archeologists [that is, unglaciated] area a little more than Settlement Data on Ohio Hopewell Soci- prize it as frequently “diagnostic,” that is, a hundred miles downriver from St. Paul, ety,” in Douglas K. Charles and Jane E. a reliable cultural identifier. Mark F. Seeman, James Stoltman wrote, “For horticulturalists Buikstra, ed., Recreating Hopewell The Hopewell Interaction Sphere: The as well as the hunter-gatherer, the richest (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, Evidence for Interregional Trade and habitat for human occupation was the Mis- 2006), 3-25; Gibbon & Caine, “The Middle Structural Complexity (Indianapolis: In- sissippi Valley and the lower Wisconsin Woodland to Late Woodland Transition,” diana Historical society, 1979), 282. Prof. Valley. Nearly all of the important edible ani- 57-59. Kelli Carmean of Eastern Kentucky Uni- mal and plant species available in the up- 8 David W. Benn, “Some Trends and Tradi- versity points out that shell-tempered pot- lands were also available here, but an im- tions,” 47-82, 56-57. tery arose in this area much later than the portant bonus was the high concentration 9 Richard W. Yerkes, “Hopewell Tribes,” likely dates of the Mounds Park mounds, of aquatic resources, such as fish, coak 231. Douglas K. Charles, “Woodland De- making Lewis’s find, or his description of savanna were excellent for deer, “the most mographics and Social Dynamics in the it, hard to explain. That piece may have important game animal” in the region. James American Midwest: Analysis of a Burial been inserted into the mound hundreds of B. Stoltman, “Middle Woodland Stage Mounds Survey,” World Archaeology, years after it was built. Communities of Southwestern Wisconsin,” 24(2) (1992), 175-197, at 176. But this Only one piece of pottery from the in David S. Brose and N’omi Greber, ed., scarcely seems possible. Paul J. Pacheco mounds can still be found – the small pot Hopewell Archaeology, The Chillicothe and William S. Dancey, “Integrating Mor- shown in this article – but it is compara- Conference (Kent, Ohio: Kent State Uni- tuary and Settlement Data on Ohio tively recent (according to MHS archeolo- gist Patricia Emerson), and apparently came Burned, Neglected, never reclaimed them, as they (or, from one of the 32 smaller mounds, not from rather, a dwindling number of them) one of the 18 blufftop mounds. Purloined, Lost: remained at Macalester until 1955. 14 “Uncovered Skeletons,” Pioneer Press, What Happened to the Some time that year Elden Johnson, a September 26, 1895, p. 5. Arzigian and professor at the University of Minne- Stevenson (see Note 15) do not mention Remains and Artifacts sota and Minnesota State Archeologist, the objects from the 1895 accidental exca- Found in the Mounds? visited the college with Louis H. Powell vation in their summary of remains and ob- of the Science Museum of Minnesota jects recovered. Identification of the 1895 and “received the remains of the Lewis th discoveries as coming from Mound 8 de- The 19 century diggers harvested lots collection from President Turck of rives from Lewis’s 1896 “Pre-Historic Re- of stuff, human remains and other arti- Macalaster [sic]. I accompanied Powell mains At St. Paul” article. There he refers facts. There is no definitive inventory. when he went to the college for the to this mound being elliptical, 4.5 feet tall, The Minnesota Historical Society materials and helped him search the attic and next to the tallest of the mounds. kept some of the first-excavated arti- of what was then the science building. Though he uses different numbers (7 and facts in a drawer at its offices at the . . . There was a fair amount of ar- 8, respectively), these can only be No. 8 first state capitol building. When a fire chaeological material, much of it badly and No. 9; No. 8 was the only elliptical destroyed much of the Capitol on damaged, but none of the copper de- mound, it was 4.5 feet tall, and right next to March 1, 1881, all of those artifacts scribed by Neill [Edward Duffield Neill, No. 9, the tallest mound. were destroyed too. There is no list, so first president of Macalester College 1 15 Mound descriptions come from various we will never know which ones. and first known mound excavator] was sources, but they have recently been very Hundreds of objects went into the found. . . . In trying to run down the ably synthesized in Arzigian and Mitchell-Lewis Collection, part of the copper, we discovered that a couple of Stevenson, Minnesota’s Indian Mounds work of T.H. Lewis. Most of this col- anonymous collectors had systemati- and Burial Sites, 472-477. Dates for the lection went to the Minnesota Histori- cally rifled the collections over the years mounds’ destruction come from Nancy L. cal Society. MHS preserves, though not and that the copper had disappeared Woolworth, An Historical Study and a in its public collection, Lewis’s detailed while the collection was still on dis- Cultural Resources Survey of Indian log – a description of each item, where play.”3 Mounds Park (21RA10) Ramsey County, found and when. Lewis at one time The Science Museum still holds Minnesota, prepared for Department of possessed scores of artifacts from the some copper items from the Lewis col- Parks and Recreation City of St. Paul, Min- Dayton’s Bluff mounds. MHS also lection, but not the ancient bauble from nesota, 1981. Scott R. Anfinson, “Cultural maintains a database of these items (and Mound No. 12. This, no doubt, was the and Natural Aspects of Mound Distribu- others.) A comparison of the two lists fate of many ancient objects removed tion in Minnesota,” 8 (older mounds gen- leads to this conclusion: Almost every- from American Indian grave sites: col- erally taller than younger ones. “It has gen- thing recovered from the mounds, in- lected, held, transferred, neglected, sto- erally been believed that large mounds are cluding all of the most important objects, len, dispersed, lost. 2 earlier than small mounds.”) Charles, is lost. No human remains from the mounds “Woodland Demographics,” 177: “Interest- Three copper ornaments were dug can be found today. The four complete ingly, there tends to be an inverse relation- from the mounds. All are lost or miss- skeletons found by St. Paul city work- ship between MC [Middle Woodland] ing. One of them, the copper breast- ers in 1895 were supposedly preserved, mound size and number of burials, with plate from No. 12, ended up at along with the copper ornament found larger mounds containing fewer skel- Macalester College. In 1887 Lewis en- with them, but they are lost, and there .” etons.” trusted “various articles of ancient pot- is no reference to them in the volumi- 16Yerkes, “Hopewell Tribes,” 227-228. tery and curiosities” to the college, to nous Mounds Park files of St. Paul’s David G. Anderson and Robert C. Mainfort be placed in “four wood cases with glass department of Parks and Recreation. Jr., “An Introduction to Woodland Archae- windows” in the library building for a The most unusual object recovered ology in the Southeast,” in David G. Ander- five-year period. Apparently Lewis from the Mounds Park mounds has son and Robert C. Mainfort Jr., ed., The gone missing rather recently. The child’s Woodland Southeast (Tuscaloosa: Univer- skull and clay mask taken from Mound sity of Alabama Press, 2002): 1-19. Fagan No. 3 in 1882 rested undisturbed in the at 373-374 describes the “big man’ theory. collections of the Minnesota Historical 17Braun, “Midwestern Hopewellian Ex- Society for more than a century. Ac- change,” 119. cording the longtime MHS archaeolo- gist Alan Woolworth, it sat in a box, still in a drawer for items designated for re- The St. Paul Mounds in patriation to Indian tribes but never a Middle claimed. They are: some 17 small pro- Context from the period roughly 0-400 jectile points; a glass bottle of reddish About 100,000 burial mounds once powder (red ocher) from Mound No. (earlier further south.) The most im- studded the eastern half of what is now portant nearby mound clusters com- 8; a small earthenware vessel, found in the United States. Over 20,000 of these shards (and probably not in one of the were built in Wisconsin and perhaps an- parable to those of Dayton’ older mounds) and reassembled around other 15,000 in Minnesota. Most of at 1920; a box of small shells strung on a these were put up in the second millen- ern Iowa, string. Whether these are the shell nium, hundreds of years after the about each. beads that Lewis found in Mound No. Mounds Park structures that we see 8 is unlikely. These are the only objects today. Of the Minnesota mounds, around ernmost because it is believed that the from the mounds known still to exist. 2,000 were built along the Mississippi They are not available to the general between the Iowa border and St. Paul. Hopewellian mound-building ideas and public because, at least in the view of The rest, which is to say, the huge ma- influences moved up the Mississippi MHS, they exist in a legal limbo, be- jority, were scattered across the state, V longing neither to the public nor to any mostly near lakes, in small groups. Havana, Illinois. A ceramic mask found at Rice Indian tribe. They rest, no longer under Large assemblies, like the 50 at side of the Mississippi across from Lake, Wisconsin, courtesy of tons of earth, but rather under tons of Dayton’s Bluff, were rare. Davenport, Iowa, over 300 miles river Milwaukee Public Museum. The archhitecture, deep within the headquar- Six counties accounted for nearly distance from Dayton’ mask found in St. Paul’s Mound ters of the Minnesota Historical Soci- 5,000 Minnesota mounds: Goodhue, ety. They rest. large complex, over 80 mounds, all No. 3 has disappeared. 1261;Hennepin, 1122; Scott, 635; Mille Lacs, 588; Wabasha, 551; Aitkin, 549; believed to be from the Middle th Sources: Crow Wing, 501. land period, around 0-200 wrapped in 19 century newspaper, until 1 the early 1990s. And then it was gone. Pioneer Press, 2 March 1881, p. 2; Bien- The building of tall, conical mounds all of the mounds were conical and MHS has no record of what became of nial Report of the Minnesota Historical was a Middle Woodland phenomenon, some tall: fifteen of them seven feet or Society (Minneapolis: Johnson, Smith & it; its database lists it simply as “miss- from the period roughly 200 BC-400 taller (the tallest 32 feet.) These were Harrison, 1883): 8-9. “The fine cabinet of AD. The most important nearby mound ing.” If any photograph of it was ever archeological and historical relics belong- similar to the St. Paul mounds in ap- taken, none can now be found. clusters comparable to those of ing to the Society was quite destroyed . . . . Dayton’s Bluff were at Trempealeau, pearance, though a bit flatter in pro- This mask was one of just a handful There was also a good collection of pot- ever found in this region. Wilford Lo- Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa, and Al- file. The burial structures inside tended tery, beads, skulls, and implements found to be more elaborate, the remains more gan found fragments of two masks in in mounds.” bany, Illinois: a few words about each. mounds at Howard Lake, Anoka 2 Interview with Daniel Cagley of MHS, 9 Albany. We start with the south- numerous, and the grave goods finer County, in the 1930s. Leland R. Coo- August 2006; Archaeological Catalog, ernmost because it is believed that the and more diverse than those found in per found two clay burial masks at Rice T.H. Lewis-Mitchell Collection (St. Paul: Hopewellian mound-building ideas St. Paul. There were sheets of mica, moved up the Mississippi Valley from Lake, Wisconsin, also in the 1930s. At MHS). pearls, copper tools, silver about the same time, five more (all in- 3 the Hopewell center near Havana, Illi- Letter from Elden Johnson to Tim Fiske shells, and crystals, none of which ap- complete) were unearthed in dated 29 December 1965, found in Archaeo- nois. Albany is on the east side of the McKinstry Mounds No. 2, near Grand logical Catalog, T.H. Lewis-Mitchell Col- Mississippi across from Davenport, pear at Mounds Park. Mound in far northern Minnesota. lection, 9 August 2006 at MHS. Memoran- Iowa, over 300 miles river distance from These masks have been photographed, dum of Agreement between T.H. Lewis and Dayton’s Bluff. This is a large complex, and Clayton Counties in Northeastern reconstructed, studied, and compared Macalester College, 9 September 1887, over 80 mounds, all believed to be from Iowa along the Mississippi, just north with others, including those from Rice Macalester College Archives. around 0-200 AD. Almost all of the 4 and south of the mouth of the 4 Personal communication with Alan mounds were conical and some tall: fif- Lake. The clay mask from Mound No. sin River 3 has been cited by scholars as evidence Woolworth. Interview with Daniel Cagley teen of them seven feet or taller (the of Hopewell influence at the Dayton’s of MHS, 9 August 2006. L. R. Cooper, “The tallest 32 feet.) These were similar to burial mounds, hundreds of structures Bluff site. Perhaps it was. But this mask Red Cedar Variant of the Wisconsin the St. Paul mounds in appearance, in all. will never be studied, and the knowl- Hopewell Culture,” Bulletin of the Public though a bit flatter in profile. The burial in Effigy Mounds National Monument. edge of ancient people of this area that Musuem of the City of Milwaukee, No. 16, structures inside tended to be more Though these mounds are much lower it carried will never be revealed. 20 Dec. 1933. Elden Johnson and Tim Ready, elaborate, the remains more numerous, than those of Indian Mounds Park, “Ceramic Funerary Masks from McKinstry and the grave goods finer and more di- A relative handful of Mounds Park there are believed to be contemporar- artifacts are still in safekeeping. They Mound 2,” Midcontinental Journal of Ar- verse than those found in St. Paul. rest in a drawer at MHS headquarters, chaeology 17(1) (1991): 16-45. There were sheets of mica, pearls, cop- ies, and many of them have similar fea- tures: mussel shells, layers of red ocher Park and sharing many elements. The Laurel people built burial mounds, de- posited grave goods, and engaged in re- gional trade. Laurel mounds have been found to contain projectile points, stone tools, copper beads, and copper sheets. But this was not part of the Hopewell sphere. Rather, Laurel shared traits more with a tier of cultures stretching across the northern Great Lakes. Sources: Michael K. Budak, Grand Mound (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical So- ciety Press, 1995); James B. Stoltman, The Laurel Culture in Minnesota (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1973); Scott R. Anfinson, “Cultural and Natural Aspects of Mound Distribution”; Arzigian; Copper ear spools, beads, and blades from a burial mound at Trempealeau, Clark Alan Dobbs, “Precontact American Wisconsin. Courtesy of Milwaukee Public Museum. This is a tiny fraction of the Indian Earthworks, 500 B.C. – A.D. 1650,” goods found in a single mound, a collection that exceeds in quantity and quality all of the objects found at Mounds Park. National Register of Historic Places Mul- tiple Property Documentation Form (Min- neapolis: Institute for Minnesota Archeol- per tools, silver, conch shells, and crys- spools, tubular beads, necklaces, and ogy, 1994.) tals, none of which appear at Mounds breastplates, all of copper, silver-and- Park. wood buttons, perforated bear teeth, Northeastern Iowa. Allamakee chalcedony blades, all in and around a and Clayton Counties, along the Mis- very large rectangular pit. Similar ob- sissippi just north and south of the mouth jects were found in other mounds in the of the Wisconsin River, are home to group. In the tallest (10.5 feet), McKern many groups of burial mounds, hundreds found an obsidian knife. In another, of structures in all. About 200 of them pearl beads. are preserved in Effigy Mounds National McKern concluded that the site rep- Monument. Though these mounds are resents a local adaptation of Hopewell much lower than those of Indian influences. Trempealeau is only about Mounds Park, there are believed to be 120 river miles south of St. Paul. contemporaries, and many of them The Mounds Park site is believed have similar features: mussel shells, lay- Hopewellian too, and the most striking ers of red ocher, sand, clay, and ash de- differences between that site and posits, stone structures within mounds, Trempealeau is the relative poverty of subfloor burial pits, projectile points and the former compared to the latter. The other tools, and of course a variety of Dayton’s Bluff mounds contain much human remains, some whole or nearly simpler structures, fewer human re- so, others fragmentary. mains, and much simpler and less var- Trempealeau, Wisconsin. ied grave goods – no obsidian, no sil- Trempealeau County is chock-a-block ver, no chalcedony, no copper beads. with burial mounds, more than a thou- Grand Mound on the Rainy River sand in Trempealeau Township alone. in far northern Minnesota offers us an The mounds are not impressive to see, illuminating contrast to Mounds Park but . . . and its Mississippi River Valley siblings. In 1927, in a single mound, archae- This is the biggest of a small group ologist W.C. McKern found the re- of mounds from the Laurel Culture. mains of at least forty-five people and Laurel was a Middle Woodland culture, an astonishing array of grave goods: ear contemporaneous with that of Mounds