Norton Mound group | |
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 Interactive map | |
| Nearest city | Wyoming, Michigan |
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| Coordinates | 42°56′11.69″N85°43′19.13″W / 42.9365806°N 85.7219806°W |
| NRHP reference No. | 66000396 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 [1] |
| Designated NHL | December 21, 1965 [2] |
The Norton Mound group, (also known as Norton Mound Site (20KT1) and Hopewell Indian Mounds Park), is a prehistoric Goodall focus mounds site in Wyoming, Michigan that is under the protection of the Grand Rapids Public Museum.
According to the National Park Service's Statement of Significance: "These are the most important and best-preserved Hopewell mounds in the western Great Lakes region.
The Norton Mound group was the center of Hopewellian culture in that area, from ca. 400 B.C. to A.D. 400. These mounds were probably constructed in the first century AD. [3]
The name "Norton Mounds" comes from Captain A.N. Norton, who owned this property in the 1800s. [4] The mounds were first excavated in 1874 by W. L. Coffinbury. This excavation revealed numerous burials rich in grave offerings. Further excavations were undertaken by H. E. Sargent in 1915. In 1936, Mrs. W. B. Stiles deeded the land that many of the mounds were located on to the city of Grand Rapids, and the area became a city park. [3] The site was listed on the Michigan Register of Historic Sites in 1957, [5] and it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965. [2] [6]
Later excavations in 1963-1964 by James B. Griffin provided information on mound construction methods. [3]
According to the National Park Service, "Severe erosion, flooding, and nearby development threaten the Mound Group." [2] "The Public Museum of Grand Rapids has been awarded funding to complete a Cultural Landscape Management Plan that will assess the site's condition. Public awareness of the NHL has increased due to ongoing development of the Millennium Park." [2] That plan was completed in February 2007.
The site of the mounds is located between Indian Mounds Drive and Interstate 196 in Wyoming, Michigan near the Grand River. [3] [2] [7] The Norton Mounds site covers approximately 55 acres and is currently closed to the public. [5] The Norton Mounds were once part of a more extensive grouping of mounds that included the Converse Mounds (20KT2), a grouping of nearly thirty mounds near what is today downtown Grand Rapids. The Converse Mounds were razed in the nineteenth century as Grand Rapids expanded, and no trace remains of them today. [8]
As of Coffinbury's initial exploration in 1874, there were 17 mounds in the group. [9] In 1936, these 17 mounds were labelled A through Q. The three largest mounds are located near the river, with the other mounds arranged in a curved line behind them. By 1963, only eleven of the 17 were substantially untouched, and four had been obliterated. [3] [10]
The remaining mounds range from 30 feet in diameter and 1.5 feet in height to 100 feet in diameter and 15 feet in height. [10] The mounds are built of a series of layers, starting with a layer of black dirt, then a layer of "ash" (probably the remains of leafy branches), then a mound fill cap, and finally a layer of natural sod. Below these layers are burial pits; these are primarily below ground level, although in the largest mound (mound M), the burial chambers are above the level of the surrounding grade. The burial pits are shallow and rectangular in shape. [3]
Burial pits contained human remains, and nearby burial goods. The burial goods included jars, cups, dishes, spoons, arrowheads, pipes, tools, beads, pearls, and shell items. [3]
The Pinson Mounds comprise a prehistoric Native American complex located in Madison County, Tennessee, in the region that is known as the Eastern Woodlands. The complex, which includes 17 mounds, an earthen geometric enclosure, and numerous habitation areas, was most likely built during the Middle Woodland period. The complex is the largest group of Middle Woodland mounds in the United States. Sauls' Mound, at 72 feet (22 m), is the second-highest surviving mound in the United States.
The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-foot-long (411 m), three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located in Peebles, Ohio. It was built on what is known as the Serpent Mound crater plateau, running along the Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. The mound is the largest serpent effigy in the world.
Hopewell Culture National Historical Park is a United States national historical park with earthworks and burial mounds from the Hopewell culture, indigenous peoples who flourished from about 200 BC to AD 500. The park is composed of six separate sites in Ross County, Ohio, including the former Mound City Group National Monument. The park includes archaeological resources of the Hopewell culture. It is administered by the United States Department of the Interior's National Park Service.
Mounds State Park is a state park near Anderson, Madison County, Indiana featuring Native American heritage, and ten ceremonial mounds built by the prehistoric Adena culture indigenous peoples of eastern North America, and also used centuries later by Hopewell culture inhabitants. It is separate from the similarly named Mounds State Recreation Area. The park receives about 400,000 visitors annually.
The Kolomoki Mounds is one of the largest and earliest Woodland period earthwork mound complexes in the Southeastern United States and is the largest in Georgia. Constructed from 350CE to 600CE, the mound complex is located in southwest Georgia, in present-day Early County near the Chattahoochee River.
Indian Mounds Regional Park is a public park in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, featuring six burial mounds overlooking the Mississippi River. The oldest mounds were constructed beginning about 2,500 years ago by local Indigenous people linked to the Archaic period, who may have been inspired by of the burial style known as the Hopewell Tradition. Mdewakanton Dakota people are also known from historic documents to have interred their dead here well into the historic period. At least 31 mounds were destroyed by development in the late 19th century. This burial mound group includes the tallest mounds constructed by people Indigenous to in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Indian Mounds Regional Park is a component of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park System. In 2014, the extant Mounds Group was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The nomination document provides a description of the archaeology and the context. A recent Cultural Landscape Study provides more context regarding the cultural landscape.
Channahon State Park is an Illinois state park in Will County, Illinois, United States. The park was named after a Native American word meaning "the meeting of the waters". It lies adjacent to the confluence of the Dupage, Des Plaines, and Kankakee Rivers.
The Mathew Mound is a Native American mound in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located off Oak Road near the village of Evendale, the mound is believed to have been built by members of the Adena or Hopewell peoples during the Woodland period.
The Perin Village Site is an archaeological site in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located in Newtown in Hamilton County, it is believed to have been inhabited by peoples of the Hopewell tradition.
The Sinnissippi Mounds are a Havana Hopewell culture burial mound grouping located in the city of Sterling, Illinois, United States.
Albany Mounds State Historic Site, also known as Albany Mounds Site, is a historic site operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. It spans over 205 acres of land near the Mississippi river at the northwest edge of the state of Illinois in the United States. In 1974, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places list. The historical site is under the provision of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, a governmental agency founded in 1985 for the maintaining of historical sites within the state. In the 1990s, the site underwent a restoration project that aimed to return its appearance to its original condition.
Leary Site, also known as 25-RH-1 or Leary-Kelly Site is an archaeological site near Rulo, Nebraska and the Big Nemaha River. The site now lies entirely on the reservation of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. The area was once a village and burial site.
The Goodall focus was a Hopewellian culture from the Middle Woodland period peoples that occupied Western Michigan and northern Indiana from around 200 BCE to 500 CE. Extensive trade networks existed at this time, particularly among the many local cultural expressions of the Hopewell communities. The Goodall pattern stretched from the southern tip of Lake Michigan, east across northern Indiana, to the Ohio border, then northward, covering central Michigan, almost reaching to Saginaw Bay on the east and Grand Traverse Bay to the north. The culture is named for the Goodall site in northwest Indiana.
Old Town is an archaeological site in Williamson County, Tennessee near Franklin. The site includes the remnants of a Native American village and mound complex of the Mississippian culture, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as Old Town Archaeological Site (40WM2).
Pharr Mounds is a Middle Woodland period archaeological site located near Tupelo in parts of Itawamba and Prentiss counties in northern Mississippi. This complex was made of earthwork mounds.
The Bynum Mound and Village Site (22CS501) is a Middle Woodland period archaeological site located near Houston in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. The complex of six burial mounds was in use during the Miller 1 and Miller 2 phases of the Miller culture and was built between 100 BC and 100 AD. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 as part of the Natchez Trace Parkway at milepost 232.4.
Fewkes Group Archaeological Site, also known as the Boiling Springs Site, is a pre American history Native American archaeological site located in the city of Brentwood, in Williamson County, Tennessee. It is in Primm Historic Park on the grounds of Boiling Spring Academy, a historic schoolhouse established in 1830. The 15-acre site consists of the remains of a late Mississippian culture mound complex and village roughly dating to 1050-1475 AD. The site, which sits on the western bank of the Little Harpeth River, has five mounds, some used for burial and others, including the largest, were ceremonial platform mounds. The village was abandoned for unknown reasons around 1450. The site is named in honor of Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, the Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1920, who had visited the site and recognized its potential. While it was partially excavated by the landowner in 1895, archaeologist William E. Myer directed a second, more thorough excavation in October 1920. The report of his findings was published in the Bureau of American Ethnology's Forty-First Annual Report. Many of the artifacts recovered from the site are now housed at the Smithsonian Institution. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 21, 1980, as NRIS number 80003880.
The Wilson Mounds and Village Site is a prehistoric archaeological site located in and around the Marshall Ferry Cemetery in Rising Sun, White County, Illinois. The site includes twelve Hopewell burial mounds and a village site.
The Spoonville site, also designated 20OT1, is a historic archeological site, located on the banks of the Grand River in Crockery Township, Ottawa County, Michigan, United States. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
