Indian Mounds Park (Saint Paul, Minnesota)

Indian Mounds Regional Park is a public park in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, featuring six burial mounds overlooking the Mississippi River. The oldest mounds were constructed beginning about 2,500 years ago by local Indigenous people linked to the Archaic period, who may have been inspired by of the burial style known as the Hopewell Tradition. Mdewakanton Dakota people are also known from historic documents to have interred their dead here well into the historic period. At least 31 mounds were destroyed by development in the late 19th century. This burial mound group includes the tallest mounds constructed by people Indigenous to in Minnesota and Wisconsin (except for the unique 45-foot (14 m) Grand Mound outside International Falls, Minnesota). Indian Mounds Regional Park is a component of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park System. In 2014, the extant Mounds Group was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The nomination document provides a description of the archaeology and the context. A recent Cultural Landscape Study provides more context regarding the cultural landscape.