French Colonial Archaeology
French Colonial Archaeology

Author: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9780252017971

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This wide-ranging book is the first to offer---in one volume---detailed results of many of the investigations of French colonial sites made in the mid-continent during the last decade. It includes work done at Fort St. Louis, Fort de Chartres, Fort Massac, French Peoria, Cahokia, Prairie du Pont, Prairie du Rocher, and other locations controlled by the French during a time when their dominance in North America was more than twice that of Britain and Spain combined. Five of the book's fifteen chapters summarize major excavations at colonial fortifications, four of which are public monuments that currently attract thousands of visitors each year. Another five chapters deal with French colonial villages, and the remainder of the book is devoted to diet, trade, the role of historic documents in the reconstruction of life on the French colonial frontier, and other topics.

Cahokia and the Hinterlands
Cahokia and the Hinterlands

Author: Thomas E. Emerson

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9780252068782

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Covering topics as diverse as economic modeling, craft specialization, settlement patterns, agricultural and subsistence systems, and the development of social ranking, Cahokia and the Hinterlands explores cultural interactions among Cahokians and the inhabitants of other population centers, including Orensdorf and the Dickson Mounds in Illinois and Aztalan in Wisconsin, as well as sites in Minnesota, Iowa, and at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Proposing sophisticated and innovative models for the growth, development, and decline of Mississippian culture at Cahokia and elsewhere, this volume also provides insight into the rise of chiefdoms and stratified societies and the development of trade throughout the world.

Archaeological Perspectives on the French in the New World
Archaeological Perspectives on the French in the New World

Author: Elizabeth M. Scott

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2017-05-09

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0813052696

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"This book has essentially created a new field of study with a surprising range of insights on the ethnicity, class, gender, and foodways of French speakers of European and African descent adapting to life under British, Spanish, or American political regimes."--Gregory A. Waselkov, author of A Conquering Spirit: Fort Mims and the Redstick War of 1813-1814 "Significant and intriguing. Strengthens the view that French colonists and their descendants are an important part of American heritage and that the worlds they created are significant to our understanding of modern life."--John A. Walthall, editor of French Colonial Archaeology: The Illinois Country and the Western Great Lakes Correcting the notion that French influence in the Americas was confined mostly to Québec and New Orleans, this collection reveals a wide range of vibrant French-speaking communities both during and long after the end of French colonial rule. This volume highlights the complexity of Francophone societies, the persistence of their cultural traditions, and the innovative means they employed to cope with the cultural and environmental demands of living in the New World. Analyzing artifacts including clay pipes, colonoware, and food remains alongside a rich body of historical records, contributors focus on how French descendants impacted North America, the Caribbean, and South America even after 1763. Taken together, the essays argue that communities do not need to be located in French colonies or contain French artifacts to be considered Francophone, and they show that many Francophone groups were composed of a mix of ethnic French, Métis, Native Americans, and African Americans. The contributors emphasize the important roles that French colonists and their descendants have played in New World histories. Elizabeth M. Scott, former associate professor of anthropology at Illinois State University, is the editor of Those of Little Note: Gender, Race, and Class in Historical Archaeology.

Cahokia
Cahokia

Author: Sally A. Kitt Chappell

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2002-02-15

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780226101361

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

At the turn of the last millennium, a powerful Native American civilization emerged and flourished in the American Midwest. By A.D. 1050 the population of its capital city, Cahokia, was larger than that of London. Without the use of the wheel, beasts of burden, or metallurgy, its technology was of the Stone Age, yet its culture fostered widespread commerce, refined artistic expression, and monumental architecture. The model for this urbane world was nothing less than the cosmos itself. The climax of their ritual center was a four-tiered pyramid covering fourteen acre rising a hundred feet into the sky—the tallest structure in the United States until 1867. This beautifully illustrated book traces the history of this six-square-mile area in the central Mississippi Valley from the Big Bang to the present. Chappell seeks to answer fundamental questions about this unique, yet still relatively unknown space, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. How did this swampy land become so amenable to human life? Who were the remarkable people who lived here before the Europeans came? Why did the whole civilization disappear so rapidly? What became of the land in the centuries after the Mississippians abandoned it? And finally, what can we learn about ourselves as we look into the changing meaning of Cahokia through the ages? To explore these questions, Chappell probes a wide range of sources, including the work of astronomers, geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Archival photographs and newspaper accounts, as well as interviews with those who work at the site and Native Americans on their annual pilgrimage to the site, bring the story up to the present. Tying together these many threads, Chappell weaves a rich tale of how different people conferred their values on the same piece of land and how the transformed landscape, in turn, inspired different values in them-cultural, spiritual, agricultural, economic, and humanistic.

The Archaeology of North American Farmsteads
The Archaeology of North American Farmsteads

Author: Mark D. Groover

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2022-06-01

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 0813072786

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the early colonial period to the close of World War II, life in North America was predominantly agrarian and rural. Archaeological exploration of farmsteads unveils a surprising quantity of data about rural life, consumption patterns, and migrations across the continent. Mark Groover offers both case studies and an overview of current trends in farmstead archaeology in this exciting new work. He also proposes a research design and makes numerous suggestions for evaluating (and re-evaluating) the significance of farmsteads as an archaeological resource. His chronological survey of farmstead sites throughout numerous regions of North America provides fascinating insights to students, cultural resource management professionals, or general readers interested in learning more about what material culture remains can teach us about the American past. Farmstead archaeology is a rapidly expanding component of historical archaeology. This book offers important lessons and information as more sites become victims of ever-accelerating development and urbanization.