Oakwood Lakes Burial Mounds

The plaque's so called Mound Builders echoes a nineteenth-century notion that a lost race, not the ancestors of Native peoples, raised the continent's earthworks; Josiah Priest's American Antiquities of 1833 proposed the Lost Tribes of Israel. Cyrus Thomas's 1894 report for the Bureau of American Ethnology did much to settle them as Native work. The plaque also reports that nearly every mound excavated held human remains. Since November 16, 1990, federal law has required institutions holding such remains to return them to descendants and affiliated nations, under rules revised in January 2024. The mounds are graves.

What the plaque says

Oakwood Lakes Burial Mounds The mounds found in Oakwood Lakes are typical of numerous such mounds in eastern South Dakota. Ten mounds have been located at Oakwood lakes and have been dated about A. D. 300 to A. D. 1400. Probably the remanents of late Woodland or Middle Missouri Cultures, all of the mounds are strikingly similar about 3-6 feet high and about 100-150 feet in diameter. The so called "Mound Builders" made pottery, stone hammers and projectile points which may still be found in the area. Whatever purpose, the mounds served, fortification, shelter or religious, nearly all that have been excavated have contained human remains. The remains indicate both primary and secondary burial practices. Primary because some of the skeletal remains are found in their natural arrangement. Secondary burials are those skeletal remains that have been gathered from an initial burial, possibly a scaffold-type burial, then wrapped in skin or bark and reinterred. Often the bones are randomly scattered in the pit during the reburial. One or several individuals may be buried in each mound. It is believed that the mounds were built by individuals who carried baskets of earth on their heads and then dumped the dirt to form mounds. Erected 1977 by the S. D. Dept. of Game, Fish & Parks and the S. D. State Historical Society

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Significant Site — steps away
• 'Ol Spot Mortimer's Cabin — 0.4 mi
• Oakwood Lakes State Park — 0.5 mi
• Oakwood 1877-1894 — 2.2 mi