DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAE SCIENCES. 



MOUND EXPLORATIONS IN NORTHWESTERN 



IOWA. 



BY FREDERICK STARR, PH.D. 

 (Read before the Academy, June 24th, 18S7.) 



In November last, I had an opportunity of examining some remains 

 in Lyon County, in the extreme north-west corner of Iowa. These 

 have no great antiquity, but present some points of interest. The 

 locality is on the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railroad, a 

 mile beyond "LaValley" station, or "Brown's." The spot lies near the 

 Little Sioux River and from it we may look across into Dakota, where 

 ridges with similar mounds may be seen. The remains occur on a 

 ridge, and consist of a great number of mounds and peculiar stone 

 circles. 



The following description sums up my own explorations and those 

 of Messrs. Nash and Cotton, surveyors in the employ of the railroad 

 company. 



The mounds are mostly round, from thirty to fifty feet diameter, and 

 from three to eight feet high. Some few are oval and larger than the 

 above figures. There are very many of these mounds with no regular 

 arrangement. Upon the summit of the ridge there are great numbers 

 of "stone circles." These are made of boulders laid with some care 

 and sunk some distance into the ground. Some mounds are scattered 

 around among these circles, but most of them surround the circle- 

 dotted area in a rude oval. The whole ground around the mounds 

 and circles is strewn with flint flakes, arrowheads, scrapers, potsherds, 

 etc. Stone mauls of good workmanship are found in the neighborhood. 



To particularize, we opened two mounds — Nos. i and 2 — and have 

 most of the specimens found in two others — 3 and 4. In Mound 

 No. 1 the material was a hard gravel, difficult to dig. Patches of ashes 

 were found. At a depth of two feet was found a skeleton with head to 

 the north and body stretched to the south. All the bones were found 

 in fair preservation. No "relics" were discovered. 



The following structure was found in No. 2: 1, gravel; 2, black 

 soil; 3, ashes and black soil; 4, gravel. Some fragments of bones 

 and some potsherds were found in the second and third layers. 



