Indian Mounds Information

• Wisconsin is the home to the most mounds built by Indian societies in one region in all of North America. At least 4,000 of the original 15,000 or 20,000 mounds originally built by Native Americans in Wisconsin survive today.

• The most impressive and largest amount of mounds in Wisconsin are called effigy mounds. These are huge earth-sculptures in the shapes of birds, animals, and other forms. Effigy mounds are not found in such concentrations anywhere else in the world as they are here in Wisconsin.

• Effigy mounds were probably built between the years 800 and 1200 AD, but no one is exactly sure who built them. Many researchers believe that ancestors of the Native American groups who live here now built the mounds because the effigy mounds seem to be symbols for values and beliefs that the modern groups still hold today.

• There are many different shapes of mounds across the United States. They can be effigy mounds, flat-topped pyramids, rounded domes, long and winding snake-like mounds, or even little hills on the landscape that you may not even notice.