298 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



Much less frequently found are the axes, celts, and mauls made mostly 

 of granite and diorite or greenstone. 



Very rarely celts or ungrooved axes and arrow or spearheads of cop- 

 per are found. 



Then there are pipes, bannerstones, gorgets, beads, and many other 

 objects the use of which is problematical, together with mostly broken pot 

 tery, scattered more or less abundantly about camp sites and washed or 

 plowed out of the ancient burial places. 



Thousands and thousands of all of these have been gathered into 

 museums and private collections. From a comparison and study of the 

 different types and forms, and this with what we know of the habits and 

 mode of living of the Indian, has enabled us to form what are probably 

 fairly accurate conclusions as to* the uses made of all these different arti- 

 cles by his ancestors. 



Among other things left by these original Americans as evidences of 

 their occupancy were earthworks of different forms and it is of these and 

 their preservation that we wish to speak briefly. 



Most .people know of the great serpent mound in Ohio an embankment 

 of earth lying along the top of a bluff on the Scioto river. From its wide- 

 ly distended jaws which is a circle of earth conjectured to represent an 

 egg, it runs in a sinuous line several hundred feet back to the coiled tail. 

 Near there is Fort Ancient, and the Great Mound adjoining Cahokia, the 

 former quite likely once a fortified camp. 



Iowa has nothing on so extensive a scale as any of these but it does 

 have aboriginal earthworks of more than passing interest, and it seems to 

 us that steps should be taken to preserve some of them for posterity be- 

 fore all are obliterated by the plow. 



It may be well to briefly describe what we do have. 



The most abundant form is the circular mound. These resemble noth- 

 ing more than the heaps of earth thrown out by pocket grophers only on a 

 very much larger scale. These mounds where we now find them undis- 

 turbed by cultivation are all the way from fifteen to forty feet in diameter 

 and from one to ten feet in height. 



The round mounds are believed to have been heaped over burial places, 

 or speaking more exactly about bodies laid on the natural surface either 

 in a sitting or reclining position. Some when opened are found to con- 

 tain a jumbled mass of bones evidently the gathered up remains of many 

 scattered dead. 



In view of the very abundant human remains found in this type of 

 mound in other states we are warranted in considering them as sepulchers, 

 though it is by no means certain that all those in northeastern Iowa are. 

 Nearly all of them when opened show no traces of human remains nor 

 are there any relics. We are forced to the conclusion that they may have 

 been erected for some other purpose or else that they are extremely old. 

 Instead of being hundreds of years or less they may be thousands. 



It is entirely possible that some of these heaps of earth along our 

 Mississippi bluff-tops may be among the oldest works of man on the earth. 



Knowing this, is it not worth the while to take steps for the preserva- 

 tion of typical groups before the farmer's plow has destroyed them as is 

 already the case with large numbers? Certainly twenty-five and perhaps 



