Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Restoring a lost heritage

PIATT COUNTY, Ill. — It is a gray and overcast day as we make our way to the mounds at Robert Allerton Park. We use golf carts to get to the mounds, bumping our way over hills and bends along a trail. I look up through the canopy of enormous trees and see the sun trying to penetrate the cloud cover.

These mounds are likely burial structures, constructed by native people living here 1,000 to 2,000 years ago. Similar mounds were once common across Illinois, but the vast majority have been destroyed by looting, agriculture or development. The mounds here have suffered from 19th century looting, but were never plowed and have been preserved as part of the Allerton legacy.

ISAS archaeological specialist Erin Riggs, left, and Aubrey Brown, of Parkland College, excavate a section of one of 10 mounds in Robert Allerton Park.

ISAS archaeological specialist Erin Riggs, left, and Aubrey Brown, of Parkland College, excavate a section of one of 10 mounds in Robert Allerton Park.

The Illinois State Archaeological Survey is partnering with Allerton Park staff to identify, restore, interpret and preserve these ancient structures.

The mounds have been cleared of fallen tree trunks and vegetation is just starting to regrow. Our field crews have already used remote-sensing geophysical technology that investigates the mounds’ interiors without disturbing them. Generally two- to three-feet tall and occupying about 1.5 acres, the mounds are easily identified now.

I quickly realize that the 10 mounds are in very different states of preservation and will need different levels of restoration. Most disturbing is the devastation to one of the larger mounds, the result of looting in the 1800s, which left a crater 25 feet across and several feet deep.

Researchers excavate a section of one of 10 mounds in Robert Allerton Park.

Researchers excavate a section of one of 10 mounds in Robert Allerton Park.

These mounds add an important dimension to the Allerton story. As the Illinois state archaeologist and the director of ISAS, it’s my job to create and implement a plan to restore, preserve and interpret these native monuments. An overarching goal is to install interpretive signage along the trail to help the public understand the long human history of this land.

Today, we are leaving with more questions than answers, but I look forward to the work with my team to repair this important historical monument.

Editor’s note: The Illinois State Archaeological Survey is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois.

Subscribe to Behind the Scenes for short blog posts, photos and videos from Illinois faculty, researchers, students and staff about their work and lives. Send an email with “SUBSCRIBE BTS” in the subject line.

Read Next

Life sciences Photo of Michael Ward standing in tall grass on a riverbank.

How are migrating wild birds affected by H5N1 infection in the U.S.?

Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. […]

Announcements Marcelo Garcia, professor of civil and environmental engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering.

Illinois faculty member elected to National Academy of Engineering

Champaign, Ill. — Marcelo Garcia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Social sciences Male and female student embracing on the quad with flowering redbud tree and the ACES library in the background. Photo by Michelle Hassel

Dating is not broken, but the trajectories of relationships have changed

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to some popular culture writers and online posts by discouraged singles lamenting their inability to find romantic partners, dating is “broken,” fractured by the social isolation created by technology, pandemic lockdowns and potential partners’ unrealistic expectations. Yet two studies of college students conducted a decade apart found that their ideas about […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010