At least 14 more have been lost to development. Throw the Arboretum into the calculus, and today there are 38 effigy and burial mounds in six groupings on the UW–Madison campus (five groups are no longer visible/destroyed). This is the only place in the world where people created large structures in the shape of animals for burial.” ![]() ![]() “There are more burial mounds on the UW–Madison campus than any other campus I’m aware of, and there are certainly more effigy mounds. “Worldwide, these are an extremely rare resource,” notes Amy Rosebrough, Wisconsin’s assistant state archaeologist and a UW–Madison graduate student in anthropology. But one thing is clear: There are more of the earthen monuments in greater variety on the UW–Madison campus than any other university or college campus anywhere in North America, and probably the world.ĭaniel Einstein, program manager of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, is pictured near the location of an ancient Native American effigy mound near Picnic Point. Together with the much larger and more enigmatic effigy mounds, the tumuluses represent a unique signature on the landscape, inscribed hundreds or thousands of years ago by native peoples for reasons archaeologists, Native Americans and others still debate. Hidden in its leafy niche, the mound is one of dozens of very old and still sacred burial mounds found on the UW–Madison campus. Every day, scores of people amble or jog past the desk-sized structure on their way to the tip of Picnic Point unaware that a human monument - perhaps as ancient as Egypt’s pyramids - is within arm’s reach. ![]() ![]() Tucked in a tangle of Virginia creeper and garlic mustard, the barrow, a simple hemisphere of compacted soil, is lost to any but the most interested observer. There are believed to be more burial mounds at UW–Madison than any other U.S. A plaque identifies the location of an ancient Native American effigy mound in the shape of a bird near Observatory Hill.
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