AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL TOUR IN THE UPPER MIDWEST

SUMMER TRAVEL SPECIAL

An Archaeological Tour in the Upper Midwest

By Jack El-Hai

The Upper Midwest is not well known for its archaeological treasures, and it’s easy to see why. The region has been utterly transformed in the past 200 years by the loss of 99 percent of its tall grass prairie, the felling of most of its original forests, and the harnessing of much of the land for agriculture. What civilization has accomplished at ground level often makes you ignore the surprises just inches or feet beneath the surface.

This tour departs from Minneapolis straight into the fields of southwestern Minnesota on U.S. Highway 212. You quickly descend into the valley of the Minnesota River, a tributary of the Mississippi, with its short trees and boggy ground. Once you cross the river and leave the valley, the land settles into a gentle roll. After about an hour and a half, you reach the town of Olivia and the junction with U.S. Highway 71. This area was once a hunting ground disputed by the Dakota and Ojibwe Indians.

Head south from Olivia on Highway 71. This is quiet and sparsely populated land dotted with rocky hills. After about 60 miles, turn east on County Road 10 and south on County Road 2. A gravel drive leads you to the visitor center of Jeffers Petroglyphs, a property managed by the Minnesota Historical Society. For thousands of years, native people from a wide area have been visiting this site on spiritual pilgrimages and to make carvings on portions of a 23-mile-long outcropping of red quartzite, a bedrock deposit more than 1.6 billion years old.

The visitors center is worth seeing first. An almost wordless multimedia presentation offers scenes of the petroglyphs site in centuries past, showing the activities of native visitors during night and day. Small exhibits cover prairie ecology, the cultural significance of the bison, and the original uses of Indian artifacts.

To view the petroglyphs, you first follow a trail through a restoration of native prairie, converted from farmland 30 years ago. It includes the prairie bush clover and many other examples of endangered grasses and

The pipestone at Pipestone National Monument can be quarried by anyone of Indian ancestry. Pipes fashioned from the malleable stone, like the one above, have figured prominently in the lives of the Plains Indians over the centuries.

plants—a total of more than 200 species. A few minutes of walking brings you to the petroglyphs.

Here, with the big sky above, the smell of the prairie in your nose, and the sight of acres of sloping red quartzite at your feet, you really feel as though you are in a place of spiritual resonance. It’s how you would imagine a visit to Stonehenge feels—a site in the middle of nowhere that conveys the sense that you’re at the center of things. A roped trail leads you across the rock, which is noticeably scratched by the passage of glaciers. The degree of cloudiness of the sky, angle of the sunlight, and wetness of the rock determine which of the approximately 2,000 carvings at Jeffers are most easily seen at a given time.

Between patches of lime-green and black lichen, the rock carvings depict thunderbird tracks, buffalo, atlatls, turtles, deer, hands, human profiles, and narratives that might relate to hunting. Because of the extreme hardness of the rock, the larger and deeper carvings must have required extended or repeated visits by their makers. Nobody knows which Native American groups made the earliest carvings. In recent centuries, members of the Dakota tribes inhabited the area, and it’s possible that the Ioway, Otoe, and Cheyenne did as well. The site and its carvings still carry spiritual significance for Native Americans in the region.

On the way back to the visitors center, you can follow the northern loop of the trail, which passes by buffalo rubbing rocks, large quartzite boulders burnished to a glassy sheen by the rubbings of countless buffalo over 10,000 years.

The tour continues by heading south from Jeffers and after a few miles going west on Minnesota Highway 30. The town of Pipestone, and Pipestone National Monument, lie 70 miles ahead. Pipestone National Monument, another site sacred to Native Americans, covers a small area, but it is a place of great cultural significance. Here, around one thousand years ago, Native Americans discovered in Pipestone Creek a narrow band of reddish, malleable pipestone between the much harder strata of quartzite.

The Indians began carving the pipestone to create pipes and other ceremonial objects, and eventually these highly valued pipestone pieces were traded throughout much of North America. The pipestone carving continues today. Native people work the quarries during the summer and fall, and in recent years the National Park Service has issued quarrying permits to people of about 40 different tribal affiliations. Only Native Americans are eligible to quarry the pipestone.

After spending some time in the visitors center, which includes multimedia presentations, small exhibits on quarrying methods and the spiritual significance of pipestone, and a gift shop where you can buy Indian-carved pipestone objects, you can tour the quarries and the surrounding area by following a mile-long circular trail. A tall mound of rubble marks the site of the Spotted Pipestone Quarry, which is still in use. Workers pump groundwater from the pits, use hand tools to painstakingly break the pipestone out from the surrounding layers of harder rock, and cart off the debris. You will come across the pouches of tobacco or food on the branches of nearby trees that quarriers have left in appreciation for the harvest of stone.

Before returning you to other currently and formerly

used pipestone quarries near the visitors center, the trail swings by a waterfall and tall outcrops of the quartzite that stands above the sloping layer of pipestone. Natural erosion has made two of the stony towers resemble human faces. At the top of another outcrop are the carved initials of the party of the Nicollet Expedition of 1838, a U.S. government-sponsored exploration of the Upper Mississippi region whose members included Joseph N. Nicollet and John C. Fremont.

As you drive off the grounds, you will see six large boulders to the right, at the base of a hill. Made of granite, a rock not native to the region, the stones may be remnants of the largest glacial boulder ever carried into Minnesota. According to a native legend, the boulders are the home of spirits that guard the sanctity of the pipestone quarries.

From the quarries, turn south on U.S. Highway 75. Twenty minutes of driving will take you to Blue Mounds State Park, the home of a herd of about 50 bison. In addition to an ambitious effort to restore the native prairie, the park includes—atop the Blue Mound outcrop of quartzite—a mysterious 1,250-foot-long line of rocks. On the first days of spring and autumn, you can see that the rocks are arranged to align with the rise and fall of the sun. Nobody knows who labored to create this seasonal

Norse in Minnesota?

Did 14th-century Norse explorers sail their longboats across the North Atlantic, through Hudson Bay and Lake Winnipeg, then up the Red River before trekking overland to create a tombstone-sized monument in interior Minnesota? This notion is championed at the Runestone Museum in Alexandria, Minnesota.

The centerpiece of the museum is the Kensington Runestone, one of the most controversial artifacts ever to bedevil American archaeology. The 200pound slab of carved graywacke bears a runic inscription usually translated as “8 Swedes and 22 Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland westward. We had our camp by 2 rocky islets one day’s journey north of this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we came home we found 10 men red with blood and dead. Ave Maria save us from evil. We have 10 men by the sea to look after our ships, 14 days journey from this island. Year 1362.”

The stone was discovered in 1898 by a Swedish farmer who was clearing land near Kensington, Minnesota. Its authenticity was immediately suspect, and most scholars consider it a hoax. However, proponents of the stone’s authenticity have worked assiduously to counter the arguments against it. The debate usually focuses on the minutiae of Scandinavian philology, medieval epigraphy, and the geophysical processes of stone weathering. Avoiding such tedium and tendentiousness, the Runestone Museum endorses the stone’s authenticity.

In addition to the Kensington Runestone, the museum houses a 38-foot replica of a Norse longboat, and archaeological and historical exhibits relating to early life in Minnesota. The Runestone Museum is located at 206 Broadway, Alexandria, Minnesota, and is easily reached from Exit 103 on I-94. Look for the giant statue of Big Ole.—Paul Gardner

The 40-foot-long "Snorri" is a three-quarter-scale replica of a Viking merchant vessel. This boat, which is said to be named for the first European child born in the New World, is part of the museum's Norse collection.

indicator, or why.

Another few miles of travel south on Highway 75 brings you to Interstate 90, a main cross-continental highway. Turn east. In the next 165 miles, you’ll pass by the small cities of Worthington, Fairmont, Albert Lea, and Austin. Should you be interested in an attraction completely unrelated to archaeology, take Exit 178B in Austin and follow the signs to the SPAM Museum south of the highway. A new attraction situated in the shadow of the Hormel meatpacking plant, the museum pays homage to every conceivable facet of the canned meat’s status as a cultural icon.

Minnesota Highway 56 curls southeast approximately seven miles east of Austin to U.S. Highway 63 just above the Iowa state line. Follow Highway 63 south to eastbound Iowa Highway 9 and pass through the city of Decorah. As you approach the Mississippi River, the terrain becomes hilly. Continue south on Iowa Highway 76, and after about 25 miles you will reach Effigy Mounds National Monument, perched high on the bluffs above the great river.

Eagles glide the air currents above the bluffs, which were undoubtedly just as serene and spectacular 3,000 years ago, when people of the Early Woodland period began building large mounds above the river. The first mounds in the area were conical in shape. Later, about 1,500 years ago, people of the Late Woodland period constructed effigy (or animal-shaped) mounds in the same area. They ceased building mounds by about A.D. 1250 when the ancestors of today’s Ioway and Otoe people were living here. Although there were once more than 10,000 Indian mounds in northeastern Iowa, agriculture, development, and vandalism combined to eliminate traces of nearly all of them by the middle of the 20th century.

An exhibit in the visitors center details the work of Ellison Orr, an amateur archaeologist who extensively studied and surveyed the mounds of this part of Iowa, and shows how the methods of examining the mounds have changed over the decades. Other exhibits describe the lives of the Woodland people, display breastplates, spearpoints, and other items excavated from mounds, and speculate on the meaning of the mounds, which were used for both burial and ceremonial purposes.

Divided into north and south units, the park covers thousands of acres of bluffs, hardwood forest, and mound sites. The mounds in the north unit are the most accessible. An easy two-mile path called the Fire Point Trail begins at the visitors center and goes by several conical and linear mounds before reaching the Little Bear effigy mound. Excavations of this mound uncovered evidence of a prehistoric fire pit, but no human remains. From Little Bear, the trail leads you by spectacular rows of conical mounds pointing toward Fire Point, a bluff rising hundreds of feet above the Mississippi. The mound closest to the bluff edge contained the remains of at least eight burials.

Although trails in the north unit offer views of several other effigy mounds, the greatest concentration of these mounds is in the south unit, accessible by trails that

would take approximately half a day to hike.

From Effigy Mounds, drive a few miles south on Highway 76 to Marquette, Iowa, where you can cross the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Here you will begin a drive north at the river’s edge along Wisconsin Highway 35 that will take you through La Crosse. Although the area between the towns of Trempelau and Fountain City is lovely, the scenery becomes more spectacular at the widening of the Mississippi called Lake Pepin. The town of Stockholm offers quaint cafes and shopping for crafts hunters. A few miles further north is a high bluff called Maiden Rock, famous for its connection with an Indian legend about a young Indian woman who jumped to her death from its peak.

When you reach U.S. Highway 63, cross the Mississippi and enter Red Wing, Minnesota. Travel north on U.S. Highway 61 into St. Paul, about 50 miles, and turn west on Interstate 94, which will give you a memorable view of the skyline of Minnesota’s capital city. Take Exit 243, turn right at Mounds Boulevard, and follow it into Indian Mounds Park. This park, one of the oldest in the Twin Cities, encompasses an area above the Mississippi River on which nearly 18 Indian mounds once stood. Members of the Hopewell culture, prolific mound builders of about 2,000 years ago, constructed the most ancient, which held cremated remains along with tools and pottery. The Dakota Indians of more recent times used these mounds for their own burials, often wrapping the bones of the deceased in buffalo hides.

After the Dakota ceded the land to the U.S. government in the 1850s, the mounds fell victim to grave robbers and the destructive practices of 19th-century amateur archaeologists. In one mound, investigators found eight limestone-walled compartments containing human remains, bear teeth, and mussel shells. In another was a body whose face had been applied with red clay, producing a death mask.

Today only six mounds remain. As recently as 1987, visitors could climb the mounds, but fences now protect them. Although most of the mounds have been destroyed, having any at all in an urban park is highly unusual, and a visit there is inspiring, showing how ancient structures can survive in a large American city.

From Indian Mounds Park, it is an easy drive to the Science Museum of Minnesota, which features a 10,000-square-foot Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery, artifacts from the ancient Mississippian cultures of the Upper Midwest, and a strong ethnographic collection of artifacts from the Indians of the Upper Plains. Nearby are the Minnesota History Center and its collections of native and early European-American artifacts, and His-

toric Fort Snelling, where living-history displays and archaeological work illuminate life in a military outpost of the 1820s. Across town in Minneapolis you’ll find the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, an encyclopedic art museum with many African, Asian, and Mediterranean items of archaeological interest.

When You Go:

JEFFERS PETROGLYPHS

Near Comfrey and Windom, Minnesota (507) 628-5591 • www.mnhs.org Hours: May and September: Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 12–5 p.m. Memorial Day to Labor Day: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 12–8 p.m. Fees: $4, discounts for seniors and children

PIPESTONE NATIONAL MONUMENT

Pipestone, Minnesota (507) 825-5464 www.nps.gov/pipe Hours: Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 8 a.m.–8 p.m.; 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Labor Day through Memorial Day Fees: $5 families, $3 individuals

BLUE MOUNDS STATE PARK

Luverne, Minnesota • (507) 283-1307 www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/blue_mounds/index.html Hours: 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Fees: $4 vehicle permit

SPAM MUSEUM

1937 Spam Blvd., Austin, Minnesota (507) 437-5100 www.spam.com Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 12–4 p.m. (Closed Mondays, Labor Day through April 30) Fees: Free admission

EFFIGY MOUNDS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Near Harpers Ferry, Iowa (563) 873-3491 • www.nps.gov/efmo Hours: 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. (extended hours during summer) Fees: $5 vehicles, $3 individuals, children under 16 free

INDIAN MOUNDS PARK

St. Paul, Minnesota (651) 632-5111 www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ depts/parks/userguide/ indianmounds.htm Hours: Sunrise to 11 p.m. Fees: Free admission

In this tour of parts of three states, you’ve covered about 750 miles and visited sites that are among the most sacred to the Upper Midwest’s native people. Now you know a bit about what lies hidden beneath the fields of grain.

JACK EL-HAI is the author of Lost Minnesota:Stories of Vanished Places.

SCIENCE MUSEUM OF MINNESOTA

120 W. Kellog Blvd., St. Paul, Minnesota (651) 221-9444 • www.smm.org Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–9 p.m. Fees: $8 adults, $6 seniors and children; additional fees for Omnitheater and 3D Laser Show

MINNESOTA HISTORY CENTER

345 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul, Minnesota (651) 296-6126 or 800-657-3773 www.mnhs.org Hours: Tuesday, 10 a.m. –8 p.m.; Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 12–5 p.m. Fees: Free admission

MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS

2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minnesota (612) 870-3131 www.artsmia.org Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Fees: Free admission

HISTORIC FORT SNELLING

At the junction of Minnesota Highways 5 and 55, St. Paul, Minnesota (612) 726-1171 www.mnhs.org Hours: Memorial Day through Labor Day: Wednesday through Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday 12–5 p.m. September and October: Saturdays 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sundays 12–5 p.m. Fees: $6 adults, $5 senior citizens, $4 children ages 6–12, under 6 free

RUNESTONE MUSEUM

206 Broadway, Alexandria, Minnesota (320) 763-3160 www.runestonemuseum.org Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m.–3 p.m (Summer hours 9 a.m.–4 p.m.); closed Sunday (Summer hours: 11 a.m.–4 p.m.) Fees: $5 adults, $4 seniors, $3 students, children under 7 free