Glenwood Archaeological State Preserve

[icejammer]

Area near Glenwood becomes 96th state preserve

Glenwood is a settlement 5,000 years old and has the earth lodges and artifacts to prove it. Come Oct. 22, 917 acres south of the Glenwood Resource Center will become the 96th state preserve.

The designation grants the land the highest protection available from the state. Preserved land may include one or more categories of important resources: Archaeological, biological, geological, historical or scenic. Only a few preserves have archaeological significance – and Glenwood’s one of them.

So far, there are 109 recorded archaeological sites in the preserve that stretches across time from 5,000 years ago to early European-American settlers, and there are 27 known earth lodge sites. The earth lodges belong to a group of early people known as “the Glenwood culture.” More than 90 percent of Glenwood culture sites are located in Mills County.

“The Glenwood locality earth lodges represent a nationally significant cultural resource,” said John Doershuk, Iowa state archaeologist. . . .

[icejammer]

Preserve land a ‘window’ into A.D. 1325

. . . The dedication of the 96th – and largest – state preserve was held Thursday afternoon at the GRC visitor’s center. . . .

“No one had anything political to gain here. But they put themselves out there, because it’s good for Iowa,” he said. “Cultural resources are nonpartisan.”

The 917 acres are a “window to A.D. 1325,” Houser explained. The Glenwood preserve is unique to other preserves, because it holds 109 recorded archaeological sites that stretch across time from 5,000 years ago to early European-American settlers. In circa A.D. 1250, it was home to the Glenwood culture people, who farmed, hunted and built earth lodges, 27 of which have been found. They abandoned the area 150 years later. More than 90 percent of the people’s sites are located in Mills County; they are thought to be the ancestors of the Pawnee and Wichita Native American tribes. . . .

Archaeologists started investigating sites in the 1920s, and Glenwood State Hospital patients helped with excavations in the ’30s and ’40s. . .

Leopold said the preserve will be a place to hike and learn as well as observe wildlife. Management of the land is now transferred from Iowa DNR to the Mills County Conservation Board. Director JeradGetter said the management plans are being finalized. . . .