Side 1

When T.H. Lewis surveyed burial mounds in this area in 1884, he sketched an unusual and puzzling linear or "cigar" shaped mound at this spot. Lying from the southeast to the northwest, it measured 60 by 20 feet and was l foot high. Built between A.D. 300 and 1000 by ancients of the Late Woodland period who left no clues as to its purpose, the mound was plowed over and leveled by early settlers long before it could be examined by archeologists. Probable uses of the linear mound include the following:
Side 2


for religious, social, ceremonial, or funerary functions; for astronomical purposes possibly pointing to a constellation meaningful to the people of the nearby Woodland village; for marking a clan or village boundary; or for a base for scaffolds built to hold human remains before interment in burial mounds close by. Without evidence, the exact uses of the linear mound may never be known. By using Lewis 1884 field survey map, archeologists from the Augustana College Archeology Lab mapped the original site of the linear mound in 2002.

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Indian Burial Mounds
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