The American heartland was once dotted by thousands of ceremonial and burial mounds.
These mysterious architects came to be known simply as mound builders.
Man Mound in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
Some of them were hunter-gatherers; others were farmers.
Some were effigy mounds built to resemble shapes of animals and human figures.
But they were then regarded merely as obstacles to cultivation, and everybody plowed them down."
The handful of mounds that remain today are protected, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Man Mound in Baraboo.www.wiscnews.com
Bird Mound on the south shore of Devils Lake, Wisconsin.
Photo credit: Jared Kuschewski
Serpent Mound in southern Ohio.
Photo credit:Geocaching.com
Serpent Mound in southern Ohio.
Photo credit:John Stagner/Flickr
Monks Mound, near Collinsville, Illinois.
Photo credit:Jamie Kelly/Flickr
Sources:Sauk County History/Wikipedia/Encyclopedia.com
