MEDICINE WHEEL 
Preservation Group

Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain

National Historic Landmark

Text from the 2011 National Historic Landmark Nomination

 

Introduction

The Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain NHL District is one of the most significant and intact Native American sacred sites in North and can also provide nationally important archeological information. The district is significant under National Historic Landmark Criterion 1 as a Traditional Cultural Place in the areas of Religion and Ethnic Heritage (Native American) and under Criterion 6 in the areas of Aboriginal Historic and Precontact (Prehistoric) Archeology.

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The expanded 4,080-acre district, high in the Bighorn Mountains, includes the summit of Medicine Mountain, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, an adjoining ridge, and other adjacent lands which constitute a complex of related features. The District’s archeological remains, its ancient trail system, and traditional use areas relate to its primary function and significance as a spiritual and ceremonial place, with archeological resources incorporated in indigenous traditional practice. Medicine Mountain includes a set of exceptional and crucial cultural features that express a broad and longstanding spiritual and cultural tradition that continues to the present day.

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The period of significance for the district extends from approximately 4770 BCE (6720 BP) to the present. These dates reflect the earliest archeological remains through present day use by Native Americans. This dating is supported by the oldest radiocarbon-dated material in the Medicine Mountain NHL District, a deeply buried hearth dated to approximately 4700 BCE (6650 +/-70 BP, Early Archaic Period), located within a quarter-mile of the Medicine Wheel at site 48BH336.

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The Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain National Historic Landmark (NHL) district has been used by many different tribes throughout the period of significance. Together, the components of the district represent the spiritual and cultural tradition of these tribes’ beliefs, values, and practices. The associated tribes are drawn from a large geographic area of the United States and the beliefs, values, and practices associated with Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain reflect the entire period of significance, making the district a nationally significant example of a traditional cultural place.

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Location and Setting

Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain NHL is located on the Bighorn National Forest in north-central Wyoming, 12 miles south of the Montana border (See Figure 1).  The District is situated in the Big Horn Mountains, a range approximately 120 miles in length by 30 miles in width and bordered by the Powder River Basin to the east and Big Horn Basin to the west. Nearby towns include Lovell, 33 miles to the west, Dayton, 47 miles to the east, and Sheridan, 71 miles east.

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General Description of the NHL District

The 4,080-acre NHL encompasses approximately 5 miles of land east-west and 2.7 miles north-south. Medicine Mountain is at the south-central edge of the district and dominates the landscape. The 9,962’ summit is above timberline and within the NHL boundary. Extending northwest from the mountain is a prominent ridge where the Bighorn Medicine Wheel (48BH302) lies at an elevation of 9,640’.

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The Bighorn Medicine Wheel

The Bighorn Medicine Wheel, at elevation 9,640’, is situated on the exposed, slightly sloping limestone surface of the prominent northwestern ridge of Medicine Mountain, whose peak is about 300’ higher. Historically, as today, people from many tribes across North America traveled to Medicine Mountain to perform ceremonial rituals as well as solitary prayer. Native American ethnographic accounts refer to the Medicine Wheel as the “altar” for the Medicine Mountain complex, illustrating the important role that the Wheel plays in ceremonial and spiritual functions. Native Americans and other visitors leave offerings on the fence enclosing the Wheel, including handkerchiefs, coins, pieces of cloth, bone, pouches, feathers, plants, stones, and beads

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The Medicine Wheel is a roughly circular pattern of stones about 82 feet in diameter, surrounding a central stone cairn about 12 feet in diameter. The stones are laid upon the surface of the ground. In the center of the pattern is a hollow oval cairn of rock from which 28 radial lines extend to a peripheral circle. Around and near the peripheral circle are located six more cairns. Five of these are exterior to the main circle, while one is mostly interior. One of the external cairns is removed from the peripheral circle about 12 feet along an extension of one of the radial lines. Each of the cairns is hollow and is in reality a more or less heavily walled circle of small size. The peripheral circle and radial lines consist of single courses of stone for the most part, while the cairns are generally several courses in height. On the east side of the peripheral circle there is a slight break in the lines of stones.

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The cairns around and near the peripheral circle of the Medicine Wheel are considered to be ancillary features. Early photographs and accounts indicate a rock slab roof or covering over at least one of the enclosures, which have openings of varying orientation. These enclosures closely resemble Northwest Plains vision quest structures.

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Other rock features were originally located outside and inside the vicinity of the Bighorn wheel. Subsequent disturbances have apparently removed many of these features, and visitors have created new structures over succeeding decades. The interior of the central cairn was vandalized at some time during the early 20th century. Nonetheless, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, including the ancillary rock features along and immediately outside the wheel, has remained intact for the most part and retains its high level of integrity of design, setting, has remained intact for the most part and retains its high level of integrity of design, setting, materials, workmanship, location, feeling, and association.

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