Tallgrass Prairie Archaeological Landscapes Project: Investigating Occupational Histories within a US National Grassland through GIS

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Tallgrass Prairie Archaeological Landscapes Project (TPALP) was established to identify the dynamic settlement lifeways within the current boundaries of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Will County, Illinois. Previous CRM-based projects identified 214 sites spanning the Archaic to Historic periods across 18,094 acres (73.22 km2) of this US National Grassland. Current research at the Langford-phase site 11WI280 has consisted of a combination of Phase I survey in 2021-2022 and Phase II testing in 2023. Situated along Prairie Creek, the preliminary data recovered from this site provides new insights for developing models of human settlement, cultural transformations, and land use within the Upper Illinois River Valley region. Incorporating these results with a GIS compiling all site data recovered from Midewin, this poster presents the first long-term overview of occupation and addresses Jeske’s argument that Langford settlement patterns are tied to resource exploitation associated with drier prairie/forest landscapes. The broader implications of this work provide a perspective on regional patterns of interaction during the Mississippian period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40208.0