We now continue with some locations that include some of the effigy mounds in Native America -- mounds shaped into the figure of a living thing. The Serpent Mound in the previous posting is the best known example, but there are many more such effigy mounds in existence, though none of course quite as large. As the Serpent Mound has turned out to be, the effigy mounds may be younger than once thought, but may also be based on an older stratum nevertheless.
The image below contains our decipherment of the mounds at Effigy Mounds National Monument, Harpers Ferry, Iowa, in the far northeast corner of that State, bordering on Wisconsin. The mounds (some normal, some effigy) are shown in the middle column and can be viewed at the website of the U.S. National Park Service at http://www.nps.gov/common/commonspot/customcf/apps/maps/showmap.cfm?alphacode=efmo&parkname=Effigy%20Mounds. The astronomical correspondence is shown in the left and right columns:
As one can see, for mounds that are found on Earth in a line just as in the middle column here from top to bottom, we decipher these Iowa "normal" and also perhaps later-added effigy mounds as marking stars from Libra at the top, going to stars of Boötes, and then to Ursa Major, which seems to mark the colure of the Solstices there at alpha Ursae Majoris (Dubhe). Here is a graphic image showing the line marked for the colure of the Solstices:
Then we go along the Celestial Meridian to the not so prominent stars of what we today call Camelopardalis, and then to the well-known stars of Perseus and the Pleiades at the bottom of the graphic image. Those stars from Libra to Perseus clearly mark a "row" of stars that more-or-less are along the Celestial Meridian in ca. 1400 B.C., i.e. they are the colure of the Equinoxes in that era, and that would be the reason for marking those stars in the manner in which they are marked, thus concentrating on stars near that line.
Our results are puzzling, however, in terms of dating. Astronomical considerations clearly mark a date of ca. 1400 B.C. -- meshing well with the beginnings of the "effigy mound era" -- an era said to start with Poverty Point in Louisiana ca. 1700 B.C. However, our decipherment does not mesh at all with current archaeological dating of Effigy Mounds National Monument.
Our next posting, by the way, is Poverty Point, where our deciphered date there DOES match the archaeological dating and where the stars that Poverty Point marked were in fact found through our decipherment here of the Iowa effigy mounds. Poverty Point, as you will see, marks a spectacular "thunderbird" at the Vernal Equinox near the Pleiades around 1700 B.C.
Dating of the Iowa mounds has been controversial for years and our results thus add to that controversy. Is it possible that the start and design of the entire site occurred in ca. 1400 B.C. whereas many of the effigy mounds were added at a later date? Surely that could explain having some mounds as normal mounds and others as effigy mounds -- and from different construction eras, all dating to a design that points to ca. 1400 B.C.
The Iowa mounds are near neighbors to the many Indian mounds in Wisconsin. The abstract to Robert A. Birmingham and Leslie E. Eisenberg, Indian Mounds of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 2000, writes that:
THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 11 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America
Effigy Mounds in Native America: Effigy Mounds National Monument, Harpers Ferry, Iowa, as Astronomy From Stars of Libra and Boötes to Ursa Major to Perseus and the Pleiades
The image below contains our decipherment of the mounds at Effigy Mounds National Monument, Harpers Ferry, Iowa, in the far northeast corner of that State, bordering on Wisconsin. The mounds (some normal, some effigy) are shown in the middle column and can be viewed at the website of the U.S. National Park Service at http://www.nps.gov/common/commonspot/customcf/apps/maps/showmap.cfm?alphacode=efmo&parkname=Effigy%20Mounds. The astronomical correspondence is shown in the left and right columns:
As one can see, for mounds that are found on Earth in a line just as in the middle column here from top to bottom, we decipher these Iowa "normal" and also perhaps later-added effigy mounds as marking stars from Libra at the top, going to stars of Boötes, and then to Ursa Major, which seems to mark the colure of the Solstices there at alpha Ursae Majoris (Dubhe). Here is a graphic image showing the line marked for the colure of the Solstices:
Then we go along the Celestial Meridian to the not so prominent stars of what we today call Camelopardalis, and then to the well-known stars of Perseus and the Pleiades at the bottom of the graphic image. Those stars from Libra to Perseus clearly mark a "row" of stars that more-or-less are along the Celestial Meridian in ca. 1400 B.C., i.e. they are the colure of the Equinoxes in that era, and that would be the reason for marking those stars in the manner in which they are marked, thus concentrating on stars near that line.
Our results are puzzling, however, in terms of dating. Astronomical considerations clearly mark a date of ca. 1400 B.C. -- meshing well with the beginnings of the "effigy mound era" -- an era said to start with Poverty Point in Louisiana ca. 1700 B.C. However, our decipherment does not mesh at all with current archaeological dating of Effigy Mounds National Monument.
Our next posting, by the way, is Poverty Point, where our deciphered date there DOES match the archaeological dating and where the stars that Poverty Point marked were in fact found through our decipherment here of the Iowa effigy mounds. Poverty Point, as you will see, marks a spectacular "thunderbird" at the Vernal Equinox near the Pleiades around 1700 B.C.
Dating of the Iowa mounds has been controversial for years and our results thus add to that controversy. Is it possible that the start and design of the entire site occurred in ca. 1400 B.C. whereas many of the effigy mounds were added at a later date? Surely that could explain having some mounds as normal mounds and others as effigy mounds -- and from different construction eras, all dating to a design that points to ca. 1400 B.C.
The Iowa mounds are near neighbors to the many Indian mounds in Wisconsin. The abstract to Robert A. Birmingham and Leslie E. Eisenberg, Indian Mounds of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 2000, writes that:
"The archaeological record indicates that most ancient societies in the upper Midwest built mounds of various kinds sometime between about 800 B.C. and A.D. 1200; the effigy mounds were probably built between A.D. 800 and A.D. 1200.... It is likely that the distant ancestors of several present-day Native American groups were among the mound-building societies, in part because these groups’ current clan structures and beliefs are similar to the symbolism represented in the effigy mounds."Whatever the answer may turn out to be, the decipherment of the Iowa mounds led to decipherment of Poverty Point, because then we knew where to look -- you had to go "South" -- and so, logically, we looked underneath Perseus near the Pleiades, just as at the bottom of the decipherment in this posting.
THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 11 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America
Effigy Mounds in Native America: Effigy Mounds National Monument, Harpers Ferry, Iowa, as Astronomy From Stars of Libra and Boötes to Ursa Major to Perseus and the Pleiades
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