Toolesboro Mound Group

Infobox_nrhp | name =Toolesboro Mound Group
nrhp_type =nhl


caption =
nearest_city= Toolesboro, Iowa
area =
architect=
architecture=
designated= May 23, 1966cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=224&ResourceType=Site
title=Toolesboro Mound Group |accessdate=2007-10-08|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]
added = October 15, 1966cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]
governing_body = State
refnum=66000337The Toolesboro Mound Group, a National Historic Landmark, is a group of Hopewell mounds on the north bank of the Iowa River near its discharge into the Mississippi. The mounds are owned and displayed to the public by the State Historical Society of Iowa. The mound group is located east of Wapello, Iowa, near the unincorporated community of Toolesboro.

Building the mounds

The mouth of the Iowa River was a superb location for people skilled in hunting and the gathering of food. Wild plants living in the rich alluvial soil of the two rivers could be supplemented with fish, shellfish, and waterfowl.

The Hopewell culture was a Native American celebration of the economic surplus, in food and other goods, created by harvesting the natural wealth of the American Midwest. Native Americans, in the Hopewell period, buried their dead in earthen mounds, accompanied by grave goods that displayed their status and possibly their religious and social leadership.

Grave goods discovered in Hopewell mounds include copper from Lake Superior, sea shells from the Gulf of Mexico, mica from the Appalachian Mountains, and obsidian from the region of what is now Yellowstone National Park.

It is believed that the Hopewell Native Americans and their neighbors had extensive trading relationships that enabled them to transfer large quantities of high-status goods across wide sections of the North American continent. The Hopewell of the Toolesboro area would have been able to export blades cut from local flint. Local freshwater pearls were another highly prized item, exported and distributed over a wide area.

The surviving mounds of the Toolesboro Mound Group were built by Hopewell Native Americans sometime between 200 BCE and 100 CE. The status of the people buried in the mounds indicates that the mounds were raised by people working within an organized community with an established social hierarchy. It is believed that there is likely to have been a Hopewell village located nearby, but as of December 2006 the location of this village had not yet been identified. Archeologists conjecture that the Iowa River, shifting its course frequently duiring the following two millennia and spreading alluvial silt over its path, may have flooded or buried the site.

Preserving the mounds

Euro-Americans exploring the Mississippi valley found a wide variety of Hopewell mounds up and down the river bluffs. Almost all of them were destroyed, either by careless excavation or by the agricultural plow. In the late 1800s, the Toolesboro Mound Group was inexpertly excavated by the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, which recovered some artifacts.

Early records describe as many as 12 mounds near Toolesboro, Iowa. Of these mounds, seven remained in 1963. The family of George M. Mosier, a local land owner, donated a parcel of land containing the mound group to the state of Iowa in that year. In 1966, the Toolesboro Mound Group was listed as a National Historic Landmark, and in 1969 a small visitor center and parking lot were built near the site. The state has designated the Historical Society of Iowa as custodian of the site.

The Toolesboro Mound Group is a grave site of the Native Americans of the United States. The Historical Society welcomes visitors to the site, but requests that they not walk on or near the mounds themselves.

The site's address is 6568 Toolesboro Road, Wapello, Iowa.

References

External links

* [http://www.iowahistory.org/sites/toolsboro/toolesboro_mounds.html Toolesboro Indian Mounds - State Historical Society of Iowa]