Interrelationships among Histories of Landscape Evolution, Environmental Change, and the Cultural Record in the Illinois River Valley and Beyond

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Village, the Region, and Beyond: Stuart Struever (1931–2022) and the Lower Illinois River Valley Research Program" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Stuart Struever’s Foundation for Illinois Archeology (FIA) and subsequent Center for American Archeology (CAA) programs were incubators for interdisciplinary research including intensive geoarchaeological research. Following Struever’s vision, program geoarchaeologists were allowed free rein to explore, develop, and apply methodologies to document histories of landscape evolution, depositional environmental contexts of cultural deposits, and their interrelationships in the regions’ large alluvial valleys and related upland systems. Approaches were developed and applied in early years to Koster and other sites, landforms, and landscapes in the Illinois and Central Mississippi River valleys, their tributaries, and surrounding uplands. Subsequently, these methodologies and models were improved, practiced, and applied far and wide by at least six former members of the CAA geoarchaeology family tree. Wide-ranging results include recognition of midwestern patterns of alluvial and colluvial fan sedimentation, soil formation, and prehistoric human settlement. Our research shows the significance of observational scale; demonstrates the stratigraphic predictability of landform sediment assemblages in large river valleys; and, identifies changing valley environments through time and their relationship to prehistoric settlement and resource use. We also show the significance of valley and upland erosion surfaces to site distribution and context, and document the southernmost periglacial features in central North America.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• The Village, the Region, and Beyond: Stuart Struever (1931–2022) and the Lower Illinois River Valley Research Program

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38433.0