Though named differently, the Warner and Lee Burial Mounds are part of the same site. The Warner Mounds are located on a patch of high ground on the southern bank of the Sand Hill River in Polk County of northern Minnesota. The Lee Mound is located on the northern edge of the Maple river, a small tributary of the Sand Hill River. These mounds were excavated in 1934 by A.E. Jenks.
The two larger Warner mounds were excavated first. Mound 1 was approximately 50 feet in diameter and contained evidence of a mass burial, many of the skulls showing evidence of being scalped; an elongated pit showing a primary burial, fragments from a secondary burial, and a bundle burial east of the primary giving the area a slightly elongated look; and a primary burial of two children facing each other near the southern edge of the mound.
Mound 2 was also around 50 feet and contained evidence of only one burial which showed that it was a primary but had been disturbed by burrowing animals. Along with the skeleton there was a crude projectile point.
The smaller mound, which is a bit distant from the first two, is the Lee Mound. It was named differently because it was named for the owner of the land the mound was on. Though it was a smaller mound, this mound contained many burial pits, more than the two larger mounds. The mound contained two different primary burials of infants, one of the pits also contained six arm bones from adult males. A third pit, containing an old female, an adolescent female, a child about the age of seven, an infant and a disarticulated adult male, and a fourth larger pit containing a young adult male, a child around the age of 5 with a green discoloration on its right forearm, a second child around the age of 4 and 3 infants. All burials showed evidence of being primary.