Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
MOUND BUILDERS
MOUND BUILDERS. A term used by archaeologists to describe various Native Americans who constructed humps of earth in various sizes and shapes from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the MISSISSIPPI RIVER eastward to the Appalachians. Early miners in the Dubuque area were intrigued by the hills of earth. Some mounds were elongated, but most were found in a conical shape.
Lucius Hart LANGWORTHY mentioned mounds in speaking before the Dubuque Literary and Scientific Institute in 1854. Scientists at the time had many theories. The mounds were thought by some to have been used as a crude fortification. There was also the belief that they had been constructed by the Inca during travels through North America on their way to Peru. Few people attempted to link the mounds to the Native Americans they saw. A popular belief was that the mounds had been created by an as yet unknown group of superior natives of the area.
In 1882 mounds at EAGLE POINT were surveyed by Colonel P. L. Norris. Other mounds, such as one at White and 7th Street fell victim to curious treasure hunters.
Cyrus Thomas, director of a national program to explore the mounds, wrote in his final report that mound builders appeared to come from several cultures and were simply early Iowa natives. While possibly related to then existing Native Americans, the mound builders were not directly related to the MESQUAKIE who migrated into the region in the mid-1770s.
Construction of the DUBUQUE-WISCONSIN BRIDGE was brought to an abrupt halt in July 1980, when it was discovered that the route of the highway in Wisconsin ran through a Native American burial site. Dating back as far as 1,300 years, the area had one linear-shaped fifteen-foot long mound with a cone-shaped mound at the northern end. This contained the remains of two, and possibly more, infants. Before the site was excavated, a Winnebago medicine man from Wisconsin sanctified the ground with prayers. The remains were reburied nearby in similar shaped mounds made of the same earth. (Photo Courtesy: National Park Service)