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| Archaeology of the Midwestern United States | |
|---|---|
| Name | Archaeology of the Midwestern United States |
| Region | Midwestern United States |
| Notable sites | Cahokia, Hopewell, Fort Ancient, Koster Site, Aztalan |
| Significant periods | Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian |
| Disciplines | Archaeology |
Archaeology of the Midwestern United States examines human occupation, material culture, and landscape modification across the North American Midwest through fieldwork, analysis, and interpretation. Research integrates findings from sites, collections, and institutions to reconstruct activities tied to populations such as the Clovis culture, Folsom culture, Mound Builders, Mississippian culture, Hopewell tradition, and communities at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Ongoing work involves collaboration among museums, universities, and agencies like the Smithsonian Institution, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and state historical societies.
Midwestern prehistory is organized into sequences including the Paleoindian period, Archaic period, Woodland period, and Mississippian period with hallmark traditions such as the Clovis culture, Folsom culture, Dalton culture, Gainey complex, Red Ochre culture, Adena culture, Hopewell tradition, and Fort Ancient culture; scholars from institutions like the University of Chicago, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Indiana University Bloomington, Ohio State University, and the Field Museum have contributed stratigraphic and radiocarbon frameworks. Key chronologies derive from work at sites including Koster Site (Illinois), Mound City Group, Etowah Indian Mounds, Aztalan State Park, and Cahokia Mounds, with typologies developed by researchers at the American Antiquity editorial community and the Society for American Archaeology.
The Midwest preserves monumental earthworks constructed by groups identified with the Adena culture, Hopewell tradition, and Mississippian culture, exemplified by Serpent Mound, Newark Earthworks, Effigy Mounds National Monument, Moundville Archaeological Park, and Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Excavations led by scholars at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, National Park Service, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, and Ohio History Connection document platform mounds, conical mounds, and geometric earthworks, linking ceremonial centers to regional polities like those inferred at Fort Ancient and Etowah. Interpretations draw on comparative work involving the Missouri Botanical Garden paleoethnobotany labs, the American Museum of Natural History, and tribal collaboration with Ho-Chunk Nation, Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, Ponca Tribe, and Osage Nation representatives.
Stone tool industries and ceramic traditions across the Midwest are represented by materials such as chert from the Flint Hills, projectile point types like Clovis point, Folsom point, Laurentian point, and regional series including Mandan ceramics and Mississippian shell-tempered pottery. Major lithic assemblages come from sites studied by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Illinois State Museum, Indiana State Museum, and the Peoria River Archaeology Project, while ceramic seriation work has been advanced by researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, Kent State University, and Miami University. Analytical advances utilize isotope labs at Argonne National Laboratory, University of Arizona—Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, and archaeometric centers at the University of Michigan.
Archaeological paleoenvironmental reconstructions use data from the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, Ohio River, Illinois River, and prairie-forest ecotones with cores and pollen records curated by the US Geological Survey, Illinois State Museum Research, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Studies of plant domestication, maize agriculture, and horticulture link Midwest sequences to research on Teosinte domestication analogs and corn chronology established by teams at the National Science Foundation-funded projects and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. Zooarchaeological assemblages from Koster Site (Illinois), Zaleski Mound, and Mound City Group inform hunting and fishing strategies involving species documented by the Field Museum and the Smithsonian Institution collections.
Complex exchange systems are evidenced by exotic materials—copper from the Great Lakes, obsidian with provenience tied to the Cascades and Yellowstone, marine shell from the Gulf of Mexico, and mica sourced to the Southern Appalachians—documented at central places such as Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Etowah, and Mound City Group. Research by teams from University of Illinois, Ohio State University, University of Minnesota, and the Field Museum uses provenance studies, network models from scholars affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute, and ethnohistoric comparisons involving Iroquois Confederacy and Sioux accounts to infer hierarchical organization, craft specialization, and ritual economies in polities like Fort Ancient and Mississippian chiefdoms.
Post-contact transformations are explored through material traces tied to explorers and institutions such as Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, French colonial Louisiana, British North America, and repositories like the Newberry Library and Library of Congress. Archaeology of contact investigates fur trade artifacts, mission sites, and colonial forts including Fort Bellefontaine, Fort Dearborn, and Fort Wayne (Indiana), with analyses by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Wisconsin Historical Society, and scholars at Michigan State University and Purdue University documenting demographic change and cultural resilience among groups like the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and Illiniwek Confederation.
Field methods and survey programs in the Midwest involve practitioners at the State Historical Society of Iowa, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Kansas Historical Society, Nebraska State Historical Society, and federal partners such as the National Park Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers. Major field projects include systematic excavations at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, long-term research at Koster Site (Illinois), regional surveys like the Greater Cincinnati Archaeological Project, and salvage archaeology connected to the Kinzua Dam and Garrison Dam programs. Analytical frameworks employ radiocarbon dating from labs at the University of Arizona, dendrochronology from the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, geophysical prospection using equipment from Geomatrix Consultants, and museum curation by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Collaborative ethical practice is guided by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and partnerships with tribal nations including the Sac and Fox Nation and Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.
Category:Archaeology of the United States