The end of the construction of effigy mounds as a cultural tradition for Native American peoples of Wisconsin was not unlike an incidence where Native peoples of Australia with a prion disease gave up their reliance on religious views to cure disease for the miracle medicines of the British. In both cases new technologies that could prolong the lives of the peoples replaced earlier cultural practices that had been important in maintaining the identity of the tribe. I believe that the effigy mounds served as important symbolic markers of the status of a tribe in the hierarchical system of the native people, a way of communicating the spiritual beliefs of the tribe, and a way in which the people connected themselves with the land as a part of the earth. The effigy mounds are clear markers of the history and symbolic beliefs of the native tribes of Wisconsin. The loss of the mound-building tradition does not necessarily mark a loss in the strength of their religious beliefs but I think that it does make for a loss in the identity of the tribe. Robert Hall mentioned that doing away with the mound building was due to the ‘concerns for the fertility of the earth’ where agriculture had become a large part of the lives of the native people, was a ‘custom that was no longer needed.’ Although the end of the effigy mounds may have been helpful to produce more yield from the land, but as we look at the land today we can see that the land has been destroyed by agriculture. The loss of the effigy mounds to agricultural practices indicates that when seemingly better forms of technology are introduced to a population more may be at stake to the culture than would be predicted.