Iowa I Opener: More Effigy Mounds

The Mississippian Culture of the disappeared around 1400 A.D., around the time that that the Ancestral Puebloans I wrote about in my Mesa Verde posts faded away. Speculation centers around climactic change, drought for the Mesa Verdans, cold caused by the Little Ice Age that probably doomed the Greenland Norse. You see, we really are in thing this together.

Mound building ceased around this time, and while some Mississippians may have survived until the first Europeans came to what is now the United States in the early 1500s, disease probably destroyed what was left of their civilization.

The concentration of earthenworks at Effigy Mounds and nearby Pikes Peak suggests this area was heavily populated. Surely it was an strategically important area. The Wisconsin River flows into the Mississippi at Pikes Peak; the Yellow River--more on that waterway in my next post--meets the Great River at Effigy Mounds.

And as with Pikes Peak, there are some terrific vistas to enjoy--even on a foggy day.

Next: A final look at Effigy Mounds National Monument

Earlier posts:

Buffalo Bill
Pikes Peak
Effigy Mounds National Monument

Related posts:

Four Corners Furtherance: Mesa Verde National Park and the Ancients
Four Corners Furtherance: More of Mesa Verde National Park
My Mississippi Manifest Destiny: The Natchez Trace Part Two, Indian Mounds