The Sinnissippi Mounds are a

Havana Hopewell culture The Havana Hopewell culture were a Hopewellian people who lived in the Illinois River and Mississippi River valleys in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri from 200 BCE to 400 CE. Hopewell Interaction Sphere The Hopewell Exchange system began in the Oh ...

burial mound grouping located in the city of

Sterling, Illinois Sterling is a city in Whiteside County, Illinois, Whiteside County, Illinois, United States. The population was 14,782 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, down from 15,370 in 2010. Formerly nicknamed "Hardware Capital of the World", the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

History

The mounds are a product of the

Hopewell tradition The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 1 ...

which flourished in the Sterling area around 2,000 years ago. At that time, the area was at the center of a vast trade network that stretched up and down the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. Mounds such as the Sinnissippi are common throughout the

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and

Ohio River Valley The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinoi ...

s.Walters, Andrew.
Historian's work unravels mystery of local mounds
, ''saukvalley.com'', February 12, 2007, accessed April 15, 2008.

Modern discovery

The first European settler in Sterling, Hezekiah Brink, noted the mounds when he arrived in 1834. Among some of the other early European settlers was a group of men who were interested in starting a Science Club. The Sterling Scientific Club, in existence as early as the 1870s, made one of their goals the investigation of the

burial mound Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

s near the Rock River.Benson, Gunner.
The Sinnissippi Mounds in Sterling, Illinois
", June, 1972, accessed April 15, 2008. W. C. Holbrook investigated the mounds in 1877 and published a lengthy written account in ''History of Whiteside County, Illinois'', published 1877. One year later, another written account of a mound investigation appeared in ''The Sterling Daily Gazette''. After the 1870s, the burial mounds were looted and most of the archaeologically significant material removed.

Sinnissippi Site

The Sinnissippi Mounds are part of the Sterling Park District's largest park, Sinnissippi Park. The park was acquired in parcels beginning in 1934.Sinnissippi Park
", ''Sterling Park District'', official site, accessed April 15, 2008. The area of the park where the mounds are found, located on a

bluff Bluff or The Bluff may refer to: Places Australia * Bluff, Queensland, Australia, a town * The Bluff, Queensland (Ipswich), a rural locality in the city of Ipswich * The Bluff, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural locality * Bluff River (New ...

overlooking the Rock River, was added to the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on May 14, 1979, as the Sinnissippi Site. It is listed as one of the National Register's "address restricted" sites, despite its public nature.

References

External links

Sterling Park District
{{National Register of Historic Places Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Havana Hopewell culture National Register of Historic Places in Whiteside County, Illinois Sterling, Illinois Protected areas of Whiteside County, Illinois Mounds in Illinois

History

Modern discovery

Sinnissippi Site

See also

References

External links