Vilas Circle Bear Effigy Mound and the Curtis Mounds are a group of
Native American mounds in
Madison Madison may refer to:
People
* Madison (name), a given name and a surname
* James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States
Place names
* Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...
,
Wisconsin. The Bear Effigy Mound is in the public Bear Mound Park, while the Curtis Mounds are on a neighboring residential property. As its name indicates, the Bear Effigy Mound is in the shape of a bear, and is intact except for a section of the bear's leg. The Curtis Mounds were seven linear mounds running down the hill and several conical mounds. Now only parts of one or two linear mounds remain, on private property.
Mound Builder
A number of pre-Columbian cultures are collectively termed "Mound Builders". The term does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than 5 ...
civilizations built the mounds between 500 and 1200 A.D. to serve as burial sites. Bear-shaped mounds represented earth and humanity in the Mound Builder tradition; other animal-shaped mounds, such as birds and lizards, were used to represent other elements.
The mounds were added to the
National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1974.
References
National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin
Mounds in Wisconsin
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