Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Friday, October 25, 2024
Prehistoric Mounds. More from the Iowa Almanac in a Moment. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Now is the time to make a plan. Whether you plan to vote absentee by mail in person at your County Auditor's Office before Election Day or at your polling place on November 5th, it's important you take steps now to make your plan at voterready.iowa.gov. Remember Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Buy more information at voterready.iowa.gov. This message presented by the Iowa Secretary of State. The people we now call Native Americans inhabited the North American continent and developed integrated societies long before Europeans discovered the land. Prehistoric earthworks by mound builder cultures are common here in the Midwest, but those mounds in the shape of effigies, mammals, birds, or reptiles were apparently constructed by those who lived on the land in what is now Northeast Iowa, southern Wisconsin, and small parts of Minnesota and Illinois. On October 25th, 1949, in an effort to preserve more than 200 prehistoric mounds built as far back as the first millennium, the effigy mound's national monument was established. The federally supervised area takes in the western edge of this effigy region. The monument territory includes more than 2,500 acres and 206 mounds, of which 31 are effigies. The mounds themselves provide insight into the social, ceremonial, political, and economic life of the eastern woodland people who live there. Some are burial mounds. Others were constructed to mark celestial events or seasonal observances. Some may have been boundary markers, and some, well, we really don't know why they were constructed. The largest, called Great Bear Mound, measures 40 yards from head to tail and rises more than a yard above ground level. The effigy mound's national monument is located in the driftless area, that part of North America which escaped being altered by glaciers during the last ice age. A visitor center leads the way to 14 miles of hiking trails. Vehicles are prohibited in the area. The effigy mound's national monument, preserving remnants from a culture thousands of years old, was established on this date in 1949. And that's Iowa Almanac for October 25. There's more online at IowaAlmanac.com. Until Monday, I'm Jeff Stein.