Amazing Nature Contest : Absorbed by Nature

While these unassuming mounds of earth may appear to be nothing more than piles of sod and vegetation to the average passerby, what they truly represent are some of the last trace remains of an ancient Native American population known today at the Hopewell culture. This site is called the Norton Mound Group and is located just outside of the modern-day city of Grand Rapids in the state of Michigan, USA. While many of the original 30 mounds were destroyed by farmers in the 1800s to make way for the growing city, 11 mounds retain their original form, the largest 3 of the group being shown in the image above. Based on prior archaeological digs and analysis, the construction of the mounds is thought to have taken place some time in the 1st century CE.

This location was thought to be the cultural center of the Native American society known today as the Goodall Focus, a subpopulation of the Hopewell culture located in what is today Western Michigan, USA. At their greatest extent, the Hopewell peoples were connected by shared trade routes that spanned from the Great Lakes regions of modern-day Canada as far South as modern-day Florida, though very few sites constructed by these peoples persist to this day. While other Hopewell construction sites such as Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Ross County, Ohio, USA and Serpent Mounds Park in Keene, Ontario, Canada are both more well-known and actively-managed sites attributed to the Hopewell culture, the Norton Mound Group is, in the words of the US National Forest Service, "the most important and best-preserved Hopewell mounds in the western Great Lakes region."

I chose this image to submit for this week's contest since this site very literally embodies the absorption of the an ancient culture by the surrounding natural world. Prior archaeological digs on the site conducted throughout the late 1800s through the mid-1900s have unearthed everything from human remains, to tools, to smoking pipes, to engraved turtle carapaces (much of which was later returned to local native peoples as of 2010). Though little active management of the site is ongoing today (primarily due to lack of funding and awareness), it was listed as a National Historic Landmark as of 1965. For more information on the site, please see my post from last weekend: 2,000 Year Old Native American Burial Grounds: The Norton Mound Group.

Additional images from the site: