There is evidence that ancient Native Americans lived in the Lower Illinois River Valley for thousands of years. The Archaic Indians (8500-600BC) were nomads who only camped in the area during certain times of the year. Then during the Woodland Period (50BC-250AD), more permanent villages began to emerge, even though the inhabitants were still hunter/gatherers. The Mississippian Period (1000-1300AD) was the time of large cities like Cahokia, after which came the Late Prehistoric/Early Historic era (1300-1700AD) during which the people lived in smaller, simpler villages. These people farmed corn, beans, squash, and other crops in addition to hunting.
In the summer of 2001 I went on a week-long trip with some people from my school to Kampsville, IL (see state and local maps) to do an archeology dig uncovering Middle Woodland (I think...) artifacts at what is known as Koster South. I took lots of photos, so I thought I'd share them.
Part 3: Living There
We also visited this really cool storyteller named John White who's part Scottish and part Native American. He has a huge piece of property on which he's built an entire Native American village, a Scottish blackhouse, and even his own cave. For the first couple of stories we were in the blackhouse, but then we went over to the cave, which was really nice because it was cool inside even though it was like 90 degrees that day. It even dripped water like a natural cave!
Unfortunately, I only have one picture of the blackhouse. I don't know why I didn't take more pictures of stuff there...
Center for American Archeology
Cahokia Mounds
Koster book
Back to the home page.
Kampsville Links
The folks who run the Kampsville dig. Click on the "About Us" link to see a black-and-white photo of the original excavation.
The official Cahokia Mounds website.
Stuart Struever's Koster: Americans in Search of their Prehistoric Past. I read this book before the trip, and I highly recommend it.
