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MVAC Lecture – Effigy Mound Ceremonial Landscapes

Concentrated in southern Wisconsin, much has been learned about effigy mounds over the years, including the facts that they are most often burial places and depict sometimes huge animals and supernatural beings that had been sculpted from the earth.  However, explanations for the phenomena, which only lasted between circa 700 and 1100 AD, have been elusive.  Drawing upon much archaeological and other anthropological information on Native American religion and worldviews, this presentation offers the view that the often vast effigy mound arrangements are ceremonial landscapes reflecting a religious movement in which key powerful spirits were periodically animated in places where the spirits dwell to bring blessings to humans by renewing the world and to carry the dead in cycle of death and rebirth. A hypothesis for why this might have been done in a specific geographic area in the Midwest is also presented.

Robert A.  Birmingham is the former Wisconsin State Archaeologist and Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. Now retired, he continues to write public-oriented books on various archaeological and historical and topics.

Related campus initiatives

Greater La Crosse community

When

Past occurrences (1)

  • 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019

Where

3310 Student Union

UWL campus map for building location and nearby parking lots.

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse 3310 Student Union

Contact

For questions about this event or to request disability accommodations , contact MVAC at 608.785.6473 or MVAC@uwlax.edu.

Parking

Payment may be required. No permit?
Use Passport Parking.

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