The Greenfield Man Mound	by Ed Benck
Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 October Journal	Minnetonka, Minnesota

This excerpt from "The Greenfield Man Mound" published in the 2023 Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 October Journal Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2024

Survey of 1859 drawing and notes.

 

 

It is now 1000 A.D., about 20,000 years after eastern Sauk County, Wisconsin experienced the end of the Wisconsin Glaciation Period. With the final retreat of the Green Bay Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, the Late Woodland Period is now coming to a close. Located several miles west of the Baraboo River and just east of what is now Baraboo, Wisconsin, there lies a glacial outwash plain located between two prominent moraines, running in an east to west orientation. The eastern end of the washout funnels down to a narrower channel, now referred to as The Narrows. Lower Narrows State Natural Area currently lies at the eastern end of the larger northern moraine. Tucked back on the edge of the smaller southern moraine, just west of The Narrows, lies the only remaining anthropomorphic effigy mound in the whole world. Built during the Late Woodland Period circa 1000 A.D., the Effigy Mound Culture was thriving in the Upper Midwest. Mounds, of which there were thousands constructed, mostly near rivers, were made by a people who left no written records or clues as to why the mounds were built. At one time there may have been up to five man mounds, all located in Wisconsin. Almost all succumbed to the plow during the late 1800s and into the next century.

An early pioneer of Sauk County wrote, “We were rather irked by the large number of Indian mounds we had to plow down. There must have been 25 on our land alone. Some were shaped like animals and some like birds, and all were from three to five feet high. I suppose we should not have destroyed them.” But they were then regarded as merely obstacles to cultivation, and everyone plowed them down. The vast majority of the existing outwash plain is now under intensive agriculture.

Stephen Taylor (1805-1877) from Pennsylvania worked out of the U.S. Land Office in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, which was the center of the area’s lead mining district. Around 1840, Taylor made detailed sketches of many of the mounds located here before they were destroyed by the advance of agriculture, road construction, and general development. Taylor recorded at least two more anthropomorphic mounds. Benjamin Silliman’s American Journal of Science and Art published his drawings in January, 1838, Volume 34.

In 1853, the Man Mound was first carefully surveyed by William H. Canfield. Originally the mound was 214 feet long, 48 feet wide at the shoulders, and was raised 2.5 feet above the ground. During the late 1800s, Man Mound Road was constructed, and pastures created, which destroyed the legs and feet of Man Mound just below his knees, leaving the mound over 50 feet shorter than its original length. Man Mound was constructed in roughly a north/south axis, with the head to the south and the feet to the north. The figure is posed as if walking to the ...