When Robert Birmingham moved to Madison more than 30 years ago to start his job at the Wisconsin Historical Society, he was “blown away” by how many effigy mounds were in the city and the surrounding lakes.
“That’s really what got me interested in finding out more and … explaining what a spectacular phenomenon this actually is,” he told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
It’s not just Madison that is home to a lot of mounds. Wisconsin contains thousands of burial and effigy mounds — ancient earthen monuments built by Native American peoples more than 1,000 years ago in striking shapes of birds, bears and water spirits…