There are a few Indian mounds at Palisades-Keplar State Park, near the campground area.

“I wish they could tell us a little more about Native American culture,” said Gail Barels, former naturalist at Wickiup Hills. “They already tell us a lot about the time periods.”

One of those items is that the mounds may not have been built exactly next to where Native Americans lived, but rather at places that might have been a days walk away. Many of them were built as a ceremonial site where ancestors were put to rest.

There are also differences in the type of mounds we see in the area. Effigy Mounds, for example, were mounds built to look like an animal, and the people buried in that mound may have had a connection in their tribe to those kinds of animals.

The mounds in our area are more conical mounds. The ones at Palisades Keplar only come to knee height, but some reach heights of six feet.

They’re also some of the last remaining mounds in the area, many of which were damaged or relocated due to the development of ground in the area.

In 1976, Iowa became one of the states who outlawed tampering or digging into these mounds when Gov. Robert Ray made laws that protected the ones that still remained. Many of these sites were built in time spans of 800 years or more ago.

Along with those buried, sites around these mounds indicate how culture has changed throughout time. Barels showed off the transition of spear tips that are found at many sites to far smaller arrow tips, all sharpened and carved from stone of how tribes moved from one technological age to another.

Items like pots and metals also start showing up, which highlight the robust trade that was practiced by natives in the area. That’s likewise seen in some of the crops that were cultivated here. Corn would have originated from Mexico, but made it’s way to this area before settlers reached the land. Items like conch shells and obsidian have been found in the past as well.

Barels said the tribes that made most for the settling here were from the Ioway tribes, and the tribe was more apt to set ground until resources may run out and then migrate elsewhere.

With that, you see more practices like planting crops and being located very close to watersources for where they might establish their villages for a period of years before moving on.

While many Iowans know of the Meskwaki tribe that purchased land in the State of Iowa, the Meskwaki originally had lived more to the eastern part of the country, but kept being pushed more westward. When Iowa was forming in the 1960s, the Meskwaki were able to purchase the land around Tama for their tribe.