An apparent late woodland boundary in Western Wisconsin

This pattern continues in the next drainage north, the much larger La Crosse River valley. The near absence of effigies near La Crosse is borne out by Increase Lapham's (1852) account of a mound survey that traversed the entire La Crosse River valley, in which he wrote: "The imitative [effigy] mounds, so far as I could learn have not been formed in the valley or vicinity of La Crosse." In fact, there were two effigy mounds at La Crosse, and these were mapped by Lewis in the 1880s. Both were located near the mouth of the La Crosse River, within the Mississippi Valley. One of the La Crosse effigies was either a "turtle" or bird, the other a long-tailed "panther."

Effigy Mound Classification

In order to quantify the apparent effigy mound segregation between the areas north and south of the Bad Axe Valley, we developed a simplified classification of effigy mound forms (Figure 3), avoiding such names as bear, panther, turtle, wolf. Instead, we separated birds from quadrupeds. Birds were subdivided into those with a single tail and those with a split tail. Quadrupeds were differentiated into those having a long tail, a short tail, and no tail. The "long tail" category was defined on the basis of whether the tail was as long as or longer than the length of the body and head combined. Initially, the three quadruped groups were further subdivided into groups based on whether they were constructed in plan view (four legs) or profile (two legs). Because the distribution of short- and no-tailed mounds was nearly identical, these were combined for this article. As no distinct patterning was revealed in the distribution of plan/profile subcategories, these are not detailed in this article. The study also did not consider the linear, compound, or small conical mounds often attributed to the Effigy Mound culture.

Animal-shaped effigy mounds within river counties from the Illinois state line to the St. Croix River were included, with quantities tabulated from Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin state site records (Table 1). Data were derived from copies of Lewis's original notes and those of Ellison Orr (n.d.) for northeastern Iowa. In addition, data from Mallam's (1976) Effigy Mound study were considered. Sites containing each of the mound forms were then plotted on an ArcView (ESRI) hydrological base map. The maps depict the presence of mound form categories and not densities. Each mound category was designated by a symbol, and one symbol for each category was placed at the location of the site. Thus, sites having single or multiple split-tailed birds are depicted with one symbol representing that category.

An Effigy Mound Boundary

Figures 4 and 5 depict the distribution of mound categories by site. These reveal a clear pattern of differential distribution of long-tailed mounds, which, with one exception, are restricted to the area north of the Bad Axe River. The cluster of long-tailed mounds at Trempealeau is represented by several sites that contain multiple examples of this category, such as 47Tr2 (Figure 6). As noted earlier, individual long-tailed mounds were also recorded at La Crosse and Diamond Bluff. Long-tailed mounds extend eastward to Juneau County on the Wisconsin River and were very common throughout glaciated eastern Wisconsin (Lapham 1855). The lone example of a long-tailed mound in the southern portion of the Driftless Area is located near the mouth of the Grant River, in the vicinity of the Late Woodland/Mississippian Fred Edwards site (Finney 1993; Finney and Stoltman 1991).