In the Beginning: Stuart Struever and the Lower Illinois River Valley (LIV)

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.

This introductory paper for the symposium recognizing and celebrating the seminal contributions of Stuart Struever to Midcontinental archaeology begins with his earliest regional project at the Kamp Mound Group. Legend has it that Struever became lost traveling to St. Louis. On highway 100, north of Kampsville, he saw a landowner bulldozing a portion of the Kamp Mound Group, paused, and asked if he could conduct an archaeological excavation instead. Thus, the 1958 and 1959 field seasons began a 26-year regional archaeological program directed by Struever, centered in Kampsville. The Kamp excavations anchored 65+ years of productive LIV bioarchaeology. Following the Kamp Mound analysis, his MA thesis at Northwestern University, Struever pivoted to village sites and regional surveys during the 1960s. Flotation developed, and with it the transformative paleobotanical and paleofaunal studies that helped define the Eastern North American Agricultural Complex (EAC) and the significant role of freshwater resources. The profoundly interdisciplinary Koster site excavations dominated the period between 1969 and 1979, with geoarchaeology assuming an increasingly prominent role. Struever’s contributions to ceramic analysis and chronology were also foundational, as was the west-central Illinois Contract Archaeology Program. As Struever’s concept for archaeological research expanded, the LIV’s role diminished, ending in 1984.

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): 37738.0