Nature Bulletin No. 637-A   April 16, 1977
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:ILLINOIS ARCHAEOLOGY

Few experiences in the out-of-doors tickle the imagination like finding 
a flint arrowhead or a piece of broken pottery where it has lain for 
ages. What a lot of questions it raises! How old is it? Who made it? 
How was it made and what was it used for? A little practice trains the 
eye to recognize Indian workmanship, even in small fragments .

The answers to such questions and a better understanding of the 
prehistoric inhabitants of our state are unfolded in a booklet -- 
ILLINOIS ARCHAEOLOGY -- which gives in a nutshell the most up-
to-date and authoritative information about our Indian predecessors. 
This well-written and illustrated booklet fills a great need in school 
libraries and has a wealth of information for serious students of 
archaeology, hobbyists and persons with more than a casual interest in 
the past.

Indians lived in Illinois, continuously, for more than 10,000 years 
before the coming of the first white men. Their history is divided into 
seven periods of culture, each more or less overlapping the one 
following. The way of life of the people in each of these periods is 
described and interpreted from a study of their tools, pottery, 
ornaments, weapons, traces of dwellings, storage pits, refuse pits, and 
other clues. Each section of the booklet is followed by a list of 
suggested readings for those who care to study further.

The men of the Paleo-Indian Period, oldest in the state, are estimated 
to have appeared 12,000 to 15,000 B.C., as the last glacier was 
retreating, and to have disappeared about 6000 B.C. They are known 
mostly from a scattering of beautifully made flint weapons with which 
they may have hunted among the great herds of Ice Age animals. The 
Archaic Period, next following, also covers an enormous span of time, 
from sometime before 8000 B.C. down to 1000 B.C. Both hunters and 
gatherers, they had a variety of stone implements, a few bits of native 
copper, but no pottery.

In the five succeeding periods of culture in Illinois, beginning about 
2500 B.C. and lasting into modern times, the story becomes more and 
more complete. We learn of their agriculture, their homes and their 
ancient trade with distant parts of the country for marine shells, mica, 
copper and obsidian. The Historic Period, based on a wealth of written 
records since Marquette's first trip through Illinois in 1673, gives an 
excellent account of tribal locations and migrations.

One of the most urgent immediate needs is to salvage as much 
evidence as possible where ancient mounds, village sites and forts are 
threatened with destruction by the building of highways, subdivisions 
and other large-scale earth-moving jobs. Once these Indian works are 
dug up and scrambled, their possible contribution to our knowledge of 
the past is lost forever.

The main purpose of the Illinois Archaeological Survey is to collect 
and preserve this information. It is supported entirely by volunteer 
contributions. They invite you to write them about any Indian sites in 
your area and offer to help identify collections of Indian relics. For a 
copy of ILLINOIS ARCHAEOLOGY, price about one and one half 
dollars, write the Illinois Archaeological Survey, 137 Davenport Hall, 
University of Illinois, Urbana .