MOUNDS OF THE UNITED STATES — BUSHNELL 671 



ancient home, according to traditions, was in the up]Der valley of the 

 Ohio. Beautiful examples of circular mounds are shown in Plate 6. 



THE SIOUAN TRIBES EAST OF OHIO 



Siouan tribes lived eastward from Ohio, across the mountains, and 

 at the time of the settlement of Virginia and Carolina tribes of this 

 stock dominated the region westward from the falls of the James at 

 Richmond, They erected burial mounds of a form not so very dif- 

 ferent from those reared by the Choctaw of the far south, as will be 

 described later. And it was a mound of this type that Thomas 

 Jefferson opened about the time of the American Revolution and de- 

 scribed so minutely in his notes. This particular place of burial 

 stood near the center of a lowland on the right bank of the Rivanna, 

 about 4 miles due north of the University of Virginia, in Albemarle 

 County. It was estimated to have contained the remains of at least 

 1,000 individuals, and must necessarily have been the burial place 

 of the dead of the near-by village for many years. Northward about 

 15 miles distant, on the right bank of the Rapidan, was another burial 

 place of the same type — a large mound which contained the remains 

 of several hundred individuals and which may have been even larger 

 than the one examined by Jefferson. Surrounding both mounds 

 were extensive traces of large villages — sites of Monacan towns occu- 

 pied at the time of the settlement of the colony. It is quite probable 

 these mounds were erected, all or in part, subsequent to the year 1600. 

 Similar mounds, described in early records as " Indian graves," have 

 been discovered in other part^ of the surrounding country, and some 

 have been encountered southward as far as Cape Fear in North 

 Carolina. 



THE BIRD AND ANIMAL EFFIGIES OF WISCONSIN 



The central portion of the valley of the Ohio is justly famed for 

 the number and the magnitude of the geometric earthworks which 

 stood there at the time of the settlement of the country by the pio- 

 neers from the east, but in the region between the Mississippi and 

 Lake Michigan are found works of another type scarcely less in- 

 teresting. These are the effigy mounds, low spreading structures 

 often repr'^senting birds and animals ; some may have been designed 

 to show human figures with outstretched arms, others are more con- 

 ventionalized, gradually merged into long embankments, often con- 

 tinuing in parallel rows. These curious works, with few exceptions, 

 occur in the southern part of Wisconsin, from Prairie du Chien at 

 the mouth of the Wisconsin River across the State to near the shores 

 of Lake Michigan. Some of the largest and most varied groups 

 occur in Grant County, bordering on the Mississippi, and northward 

 in the adjoining county of Crawford (fig. 1). The effigies often 



