Lizard Mound County Park
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Lizard Mound County Park is a county-operated park in Washington County, Wisconsin near the city of West Bend. It contains a significant well-preserved effigy mound group.
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[edit] Information
Lizard Mound County Park is located north of West Bend, Wisconsin on County Trunk "A", one mile east of State Highway 144. Established in 1950, the park was acquired by Washington County from the State of Wisconsin in 1986. Lizard Mound County Park consists of 26 effigy mounds in an excellent state of preservation, reputedly one of the best effigy mound groups remaining in Wisconsin.[citation needed] It is named for its most outstanding mound, shaped like a gigantic lizard.[1] An unusually beautiful group of mounds, each is of prominent height and careful construction. Most of the mounds rise more than three feet above the ground surface.[2] The variety of mound shapes found in the park is considered unusual.
[edit] History
Indians we now call the Mound Builders lived in Wisconsin and bordering states between A.D. 500 and A.D. 1000. They built burial and effigy mounds shaped like mammals, reptiles, birds and other creatures both real and mythical. They also constructed conical, oval and linear mounds. The custom of building effigy burial mounds died out about 1000 years ago; it was a custom unique to the general area. Little else is known about the Mound Builders. Even Indians who lived in Wisconsin when the first white men arrived didn't know why, or by whom, the mounds had been built.
Effigy mounds are found primarily in central and southern Wisconsin. It is estimated that Wisconsin had at least 5,000 effigy mounds when the white settlers first arrived. Hundreds mounds were destroyed by early settlers who didn't know what they were. Repeated cultivation of the land eliminated all traces of most of the mounds.
The earliest data concerning the mounds in the area of Lizard Mound County Park was in the form of a sketch map resulting from field investigations made by Professor Julius L. Torney of Milwaukee in 1883. In his sketch of the mound group, Torney illustrated a total of 47 Indian mounds. He also indicated that a number of the earthworks had been destroyed prior to the time that he drew his map. The original group probably consisted of at least 60 mounds, including many of the well known effigy shapes.
Archeological explorations conducted in 1960 revealed that the dead were placed in pits, with the effigy mounds built over the pits. Artifacts such as clay pots, projectile points, pipes, bone harpoons and beads were sometimes placed with the dead. It has been speculated that the shapes of the mounds had a religious or clan significance, but no one knows for sure.
Excavations of Effigy Mound Builders' village sites indicated they lived in small nomadic groups, hunted, fished, gathered fruits and nuts, fashioned tools of stone, wood, bone and copper, made pottery and may have been the first people in Wisconsin to use the bow and arrow.
No other group of mounds in Wisconsin is so well preserved, so diverse in form, or exhibits such outstanding examples of the prehistoric art of mound construction.[citation needed] This park is an important monument to one of Wisconsin's most interesting prehistoric Indian cultures.
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Coordinates: 43°27′48″N 88°08′21″W / 43.46333°N 88.13917°W
