Silver Mound Archeological District facts for kids
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Silver Mound Archeological District
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Sign
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 Location in Wisconsin
Location in the United States
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| Nearest city | Alma Center, Wisconsin |
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| NRHP reference No. | 75000067 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | January 17, 1975 |
| Designated NHLD | February 17, 2006 |
Silver Mound is a special hill in Wisconsin. Long ago, Native Americans dug up a very hard stone called quartzite here. They used this stone to make stone tools like spear points and knives.
Tools made from Silver Mound's quartzite have been found far away, even in Kentucky. The oldest tools are about 11,000 years old. This helps us learn about the first people who lived in Wisconsin. Because it's so important, the Silver Mound Archeological District was named a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
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Where is Silver Mound Located?
Silver Mound is in the town of Hixton, in Jackson County, Wisconsin. It's a hill made of sandstone. This sandstone formed a very long time ago, during the Cambrian Period.
Inside this sandstone, there's a layer of super hard stone. This stone is called silicated quartzite or orthoquartzite. Stone like this is quite rare. It's special because people can break it into pieces. Then they can shape these pieces into tools. Scientists can even tell the difference between Silver Mound quartzite and similar stones from other places.
Who Used Silver Mound?
The first people known to use Silver Mound were Paleo-Indians. They came to this area around 9550 BC. This was after the last glacier started to melt away. The weather was still cool back then. Large animals like mammoths and mastodons lived in the area.
Tools for Hunting and Daily Life
Paleo-Indians needed strong tools to hunt these big animals. They also needed knives and scrapers to prepare their food. The quartzite from Silver Mound was perfect for making these tools. It was the biggest source of this hard stone in the Midwest. Tools made from Silver Mound quartzite have been found far away. Some were found at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.
Later, other Native American groups also used the quartzite. By 8,000 BC, mammoths and mastodons were gone. But Archaic Indians still needed points for hunting. They hunted animals like large bison, elk, and deer. They also got stone from Silver Mound. Later, Woodland and Oneota peoples used the stone too.
What Can We Find at Silver Mound?
There are about one thousand quarry pits on the mound. These are places where people dug for stone. Archeologists have found areas that were like workshops. In some, large pieces of quartzite were broken into smaller, easier-to-work pieces. In other workshops, these smaller pieces were finished into tools.
Six rock shelters have also been found on the bluff. These are natural caves or overhangs. Two of these shelters even have ancient rock art inside!
How Was Silver Mound Discovered?
People from Europe first learned about the Native American quarries in the 1840s. They called it Silver Mound because they thought it had silver. Some mining was done, but no silver was ever found.
The land around the base of the mound has been farmed for many years. But most of the mound itself has not been disturbed. Archeologists first visited the mound in 1928. Over time, they realized how old some of the Native American quarries were.
In 1975, Silver Mound was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Then, in 2006, it was named a National Historic Landmark. This was mainly because it can still teach us so much about the first people in Wisconsin.
