13342 Cty. Hwy. C

Summary

Wyalusing State Park Mounds Archaeological District
13342 County Highway C, Town of Wyalusing, Grant County

The Wyalusing State Park mound district contains 21 mound groups with 69 individual mounds. It is estimated that they were built sometime during the Late Woodland era (650-1300 A.D.). These various mounds rest upon bluffs that overlook stunning views of the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers within Wyalusing State Park, which was designated as a state park in 1917.

For thousands of years, mound-building was a fundamental religious and social activity for Native Americans across eastern North America. In Wisconsin, this tradition culminated during the late Woodland era, with the construction of thousands of effigy, conical and linear mounds, often placed at prominent locations on the landscape. While most mounds served as burial sites, the fact that some did not indicates that their construction served other functions for the people who built them. Researchers have hypothesized that mound sites such as these served as seasonal gathering places for social groups.

The Wyalusing mounds are dominated by conical and linear forms, with fewer animal forms. Counting both extant and destroyed mounds, Wyalusing once contained an estimated 134 mounds. It is estimated that about 80% of mounds in the state of Wisconsin have been destroyed. Because of its high number of surviving mounds, the Wyalusing State Park Mounds Archaeological District is one of the most intact and dense extant clusters of earthen mounds in the Midwest.

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