93-4 Zoomorphic Effigy Mounds at the Boundaries of History, Philosophy and Geoheritage of the Geosciences.

Session: Crossing Borders in the History and Philosophy of the Geosciences

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Zoomorphic mounds are human-made landscape structures of familiar animal shapes produced by Late Woodland native culture (approx. 600-1200AD) primarily within the state of Wisconsin. They have been the subject of active geologic and archaeological research since their first description by Increase Lapham in 1836. Nested among those mounds easily categorized as modern fauna (birds, turtles, snakes, etc.) are the unique tapered linear shapes. If these controversial mounds are interpreted as representations of orthocone nautiloid fossils, as strongly suggested by their general shapes, representations on artifacts and strong correlation with Ordovician-Silurian outcrops, then they confront the philosophical question of “When do fossils become data?”. Are they data in the many millenia after organism death but before human “discovery”; and discovery by whom, indigenous peoples or western colonizers/settlers, with artistic depiction and reconstruction being key final stages of paleontologic data description? Regardless of philosophical interpretation, the geoheritage significance of effigy mounds is already recognized with the Effigy Mound National Monument in Iowa listed as one of the initial sites of the USGS Geoheritage Sites of the Nation Explorer. The existence of thousands of effigy mounds in Wisconsin and surrounding states provides a unique opportunity to expand the geoheritage movement locally into dozens of counties/towns that already have protected spaces labeled “Indian Mound Park”.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-5913

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