Effigy mounds are mounds built in the shapes of animals and sometimes people. There are (or were) thousands of effigy mounds in Wisconsin and neighboring states. Ohio has only a handful, but ironically, the most famous effigy mound is Ohio’s Great Serpent Mound. Wisconsin’s thousands and Ohio’s handful of effigy mounds usually are regarded as having been built by distinct and independent ancient American Indian cultures. But a comparison of Serpent Mound with several effigy mound sites in Wisconsin shows some striking similarities that suggest they are actually part of a shared cultural tradition. Contemporary rock art from the Upper Midwest and Missouri share some of the same imagery as the effigy mounds, which provides further support for a connection between the cultures from these different regions. Oral traditions of Native American groups that have historic ties to these regions may allow us to begin reading the stories written on the earth.
Bradley Lepper is an Archaeology Curator for the Ohio History Connection in Columbus, Ohio. In addition, he has taught occasional classes at Denison University in Granville and at the Ohio State University's Newark Campus. His most recent research has focused on Serpent Mound, which is on the United States Department of the Interior’s Tentative List of sites to be considered for nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Lepper writes a regular column on archaeology for the Columbus Dispatch and is the author of Ohio Archaeology: an illustrated chronicle of Ohio's ancient American Indian cultures, published in 2005 by Orange Frazer Press, Wilmington, Ohio, which received the Society for American Archaeology's Public Audience Book Award.
