Fish Farm Mounds
What purpose did the mounds hold for the Native Americans who created them?
What may appear to be simple grass covered mounds are actually sacred Native American burial grounds.
Transcript
[Abby Brown] (talking softly) I'm way up in the corner of northeast Iowa. And at the top of these stairs is some sacred ground. It honors this area's Native American roots.
(A wooden sign that reads Fish Farm Mounds State Preserve, Iowa DNR)
(Map marking Allamakee County in the northeastern corner of the state.)
(Abby quietly walks up stone stairs, then up a hill on a dirt path through a forest and appears in a grassy clearing surrounded by trees. Small mounds cover the landscape)
Wow. These are the Fish Farm Mounds. It's a collection of about 30 mounds built by generations of Native Americans, starting over 2,000 years ago.
This patch of ground was sacred to the Woodland and Oneota cultures for a very long time. In some Native American cultures mounds were built to bury the dead or for other ceremonial purposes. Artifacts like pots, stone arrowheads or coins and other treasures have also been excavated from ancient mounds like these. Fish Farm Mounds, named after the Fish family, is on the National Register of Historic Places. As you walk around the mounds, it's easy to imagine the impact that this special place had for cultures so very long ago. Every county in Iowa has a story that connects its hallowed ground to its ancient people. It's been a very special experience visiting Allamakee County.
Funding for FIND Iowa has been provided by The Coons Foundation, Pella and the Gilchrist Foundation.