A new book from the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, the Prairie Research Institute and the Illinois Department of Transportation offers a detailed overview of insights gained from more than a century of archaeological study. Thomas Emerson, the first Illinois State archaeologist and one of three editors of “Archaeology of Illinois: The Deep History of the Prairie State,” spoke with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about the effort to bring a more complete understanding of its history to the people of Illinois. Emerson retired as ISAS director in 2018.
You and the other editors say the new book is meant to address gaps in students’ understanding of Illinois history. What’s missing from previous efforts to teach the history of the state?
Archaeology and history are often treated as if they are separate worlds, but both seek to understand the human past by employing different sets of evidence — for history, the written word; in archaeology, the material remains. Consequently, the stories of Illinois’ people are artificially segregated between the long-term Native inhabitants and the European newcomers. This creates a vision of discontinuity and simplistic stereotypes. We suggest rather than segmenting the past we are better served by examining the complexity, mobility and shared interactions of these past people.
Unfortunately, stereotypes of American Indians* as a homogenized people are prevalent in popular culture, so a major goal of this volume is to stress the dramatic variation between Native American societies. The lifestyles of Illinois’ Native people ranged from small hunting and gathering bands to farming communities to 12th century urban dwellers. Just like today, Illinois before the Europeans was a crossroads, a dynamic place that numerous Native groups passed through. We also recognize that during the first two centuries (C.E. 1600-1800) of Native-European interaction, Native peoples were powerful agents who forged their own destinies.
If this volume has a major goal, it is to correct the portrayal of all Illinois’ past inhabitants, Natives and Europeans. They lived complex and varied lives — just as Illinoisans do today.
The book does not read like a scholarly textbook but more like a series of stories about different facets and time periods of Illinois history. Why was it structured this way?
With long careers in publicly funded archaeology, all the authors recognize that our most important audience is the public and to speak to them requires an approach that invites the reader to explore, rather than simply read, a book. We believe that books featuring plentiful illustrations and informative and diverse sidebars do that. This is not a volume that requires a concentrated reading but rather one that literally can be opened to any page to be informed, captivated and engaged by the amazing 12,000-plus year history of Illinois’ people.
What mistakes did early explorers, settlers, writers or documentarians make in interpreting what they found in Illinois?
Early explorers assumed that the American Indian groups they encountered were culturally inferior since they apparently lacked cities or monumental architecture. They were clearly mistaken, failing to recognize that the metropolis of Cahokia in Illinois had flourished up until only a few centuries before their arrival. The newcomers did not recognize the long and dynamic history of the Indigenous people.
The first settlers viewed the Illinois landscapes as essentially a pristine, “empty” wilderness untouched by human hands. They were unaware, for example, that the very prairie had been maintained by systematic burning over thousands of years by Indigenous hunters. Likewise, Europeans consistently underestimated the extent that Native utilization and manipulation of the land had created an indigenous “domesticated” landscape suited to their needs. The myth of “unused” lands was often used to justify the removal of the Native populations.
What are some of the key archaeological sites for understanding Illinois history?
You cannot understand Illinois’ past without visiting the Cahokia Mounds State Historic site, a UNESCO World Heritage site located just east of St Louis. Between C.E. 1050 and 1300, the Indigenous city of Cahokia covered 5 square miles and was home to 20,000 people. Archaeological remains of this unique city still lie intact, buried under East St. Louis, Illinois.
The early European contact period is amply interpreted within Illinois’ French Colonial District, which stretches from Cahokia Heights south to Prairie du Rocher. For a century, the French were significant players in Illinois history and that is visible at sites such as Fort de Chartres, Church of the Holy Family, the Cahokia Courthouse, and Prairie du Rocher. The early American history of Illinois can be glimpsed at the reconstructed circa 1830s colonial village at Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic site.
Our book contains an appendix, “Exploring our Past,” that provides a guide to those who want to experience the rich historical and cultural history of Illinois.
How did populations of people in Illinois change before the arrival of European colonists and after?
The initial entry into Illinois 12,000 years ago was of small hunter and gathering bands. By several thousand years ago people began experimenting with domesticating plants. The introduction of pottery 2,500 years ago, enabled more efficient processing of food with subsequent advances by people experimenting with recipes and food preparation.
Sometime about 1,400 years ago, the bow and arrow arrived in Illinois. By 1000 C.E., Illinois was a land of settled corn farmers. Resource competition likely fueled the increased conflict observed by the first Europeans. In the late 1400s, most of the state was vacated, with the Native inhabitants moving westward.
In the early 1600s another Native group, the Inoka, arrived from the east. Their culture and artifacts differed from the earlier inhabitants, creating a disconnect between the Native people the French encountered and the earlier archeological remains that they observed. The subsequent dispossession of the Inoka by invading Algonkian groups such as the Kickapoo, Potawatomie and Fox in the 1700s further disrupted the connection between the archaeological remains and the new Native inhabitants. This lent credence to a “disappeared” earlier people, known as the Moundbuilders, and suppressed Native oral histories of the past.
How do you hope this book will be used?
We hope this volume will encourage readers to ask new questions about our shared past and rethink the traditional stories they grew up with. History and archaeology are about telling stories and, often in that telling, the stories become simplified and homogenized. This volume has sought to look behind these romanticized or demonized tales and meaningfully place people in social and historical context as active participants in crafting those histories.
Our book emphasizes the tremendous diversity and variety that has existed in human actions in the past and documents that the women, men and children of our past, our joint ancestors, share an intimate and common humanity with us.
While this book is written for the general public and advanced students, it also will help K-12 teachers convey indigenous history to future generations of Illinoisans.
Editor’s notes:
“Archaeology of Illinois: The Deep History of the Prairie State,” edited by Thomas E. Emerson, Dale L. McElrath and David J. Nolan, is available here.
To contact Thomas Emerson, email teee@illinois.edu.
*From the book:
Since in this volume we are commonly dealing with evidence that cannot be attributed to a specific tribal group, it is important to establish an appropriate terminology. For that we rely on the opinions of several established American Indian scholars. Yankton Sioux Vine Deloria Jr., perhaps the best-known Indigenous scholar, generally uses the term American Indian to refer to Native peoples, while the Kiowa scholar Perry Horse states the obvious: that a native American is anyone born in the United States, whereas an American Indian is specifically someone who is a citizen of an Indigenous nation or tribe.
