WHAT THE EFFIGY!!!

Historians and archeologist have worked endlessly in the pursuit of understanding and explaining effigy earth mounds in the North American region of the western hemisphere. In trying to understand these mounds it has came to scholarly importance that these earthen mounds have a correlation to the Native Indians who were here before Europeans colonized the New World. These mounds have overtime become of great intrigue to scholars in the field of Native American studies due to their ability to interpret previous civilizations that roamed this magnificent world. Many of these mounds have been destroyed beginning with the emergence of an American society. Social development and the increasing numbers in population led to supplementary agricultural areas and urban development. This as well as ordinary people have unintentionally destroyed many of these mounds. In order to preserve the mounds that are still throughout, congress passed the burial sites preservation law of 1985.

Scholars now more intrigued by the notion of old civilizations have tried to recount historical Native tribes, their traditions, and practices by examining the remains in the effigy mounds.  Clifford Geertz, a symbolic archeologist uses his theory of a “system of symbols” in defining religion. Geertz argues and defines his system of symbols as stated, “A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”  Using the concept described above one can study the effigy mounds and their contents in terms of symbols and how these symbols could relate to the existence of earlier societies. This concept works great in trying to figure out some sort of aspect of their society, however it should not be used a theory or hypothesis in trying to figure out the religion of these past regions and civilizations.

In the process of excavating certain mounds scholars and archeologist have found many different artifacts. These artifacts help in understanding previous civilizations by means of symbols that appear more often than not. These symbols help us to understand the cosmology of these civilizations and in doing so help scholars in translating ancient traditions and social structures. These symbols help scholars deciphers old world beliefs, which only reinforce our understanding of these civilizations further. Effigy mounds have been considered burial grounds for old world populations which shed light on beliefs held by these people. Although scholars have used these symbols to help perpetuate the beliefs that have already been held in depicting Old World cultures one should not speculate on only theoretical assumption what old world civilization life was like. Yes speculation happens in scholarly fields, however should these beliefs that are now held by scholars not be scrutinized more heavily due to the lack of source material we have on that era?