This course provides a survey of the archaeology of pre-Columbian and early historic Illinois. We trace the human past of Illinois from the first entry of people into the region more than 13,000 years ago up through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the beginning of written records. The class follows a chronological framework, and seeks to explain why the past happened the way it did through examinations of the migrations and trading patterns of hunter-gatherers, the origins of plant domestication, the inception of large-group identities and social inequalities, the dramatic emergence of Cahokia and Mississippian economies, and the colonization of the region by Europeans.

The prehistory and history of Illinois included a pharaoh-like warlord (at Cahokia), earthen pyramids (along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers), and tattoed elite women killed in exotic death rituals. Pre-Columbian Illinois has a long, complex history, owing in large part to its location along "the Nile of the mid-continent," and the rich environments along that river's course. Historic-period Illinois saw the arrival of new cultures: relocated eastern tribespeople, colonial forts, missionaries, enslaved African Americans, and all sorts of European immigrants, all with their own distinct cultural traditions. We will examine this broad span of time, from the Clovis people of the Ice Age through the colonial developments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as reflected in the material culture and artifacts that people created and used in their daily lifeways. You will learn how archaeologists come to know the past, the main hallmarks of these past cultures, artifact styles and lifeways, and why Illinois' past matters to us.

Your course grade will be determined from the grades you receive on two mid-term exams (each counting for 25% of your course grade), a final exam (25%), and a five-page Museum Analysis Paper concerning a museum exhibit (25%). The three exams will each follow a format of multiple choice questions and/or short-answer questions. The analysis paper will be due December 8, and will involve your visiting a museum (such as the Field, Spurlock, Dickson Mounds, Cahokia Mounds, or Illinois State Museums), and analyzing a relevant exhibit in the context of the subjects we are examining in this course. When taking exams, you will be responsible for knowing the concepts and terms discussed in the assigned readings, in the films shown in class, and in the topics covered in lectures, handouts, and web page or power point summaries.

I often create web pages as lecture notes to present certain concepts in our discussions. You can access these lecture presentations by logging onto the course page on the University's Compass program.

First Mid-term Exam: The Study Guide and Grades for this exam are available online for your review (Grades are available on the Compass system).

Second Mid-term Exam: The Study Guide and Grades for this exam are available online for your review (Grades are available on the Compass system).

Final Exam: The Study Guide, Grades, script of questions and correct answers for this exam are available online for your review (Grades and the exam questions and answers are available on the Compass system).

Course Grades: The Final Grades for this semester, including your grades for Exam I, Exam II, Exam III (the final exam), the Museum Analysis Paper, and your final Course grade, are available on the Compass system for your review.

Your regular attendance and active participation are of central importance for this course to provide you with both a fun and satisfying educational experience. I reserve the right to lower the course grade (by one letter grade) of any student who fails to regularly attend class during the semester.

  

These three texts are available at the University bookstores. One copy of each of these three books is also available in the Reserve holdings of Undergraduate Library, and can be checked out for two hours at a time.

When you log onto the Compass system, all existing web pages for your courses will be displayed. Choose Anth. 157 from the display list and you can access this syllabus and the electronic reserve copies of these additional, required articles (listed below) for this course. The logon page for Compass is available at:
http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/edtech/courseware/compass/index.html.

These articles will also be available on the Library's electronic reserves web site, available at:
http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ereserves/querycourse.asp.

Article 1: Michael D. Wiant, "Exploring Paleoindian Site Distribution in Illinois," Illinois Archaeology Journal, Vol. 5, Nos. 1-2, pp. 108-118 (1993).

Article 2: Mark J. Wagner, "Visions of Other Worlds: The Native American Rock Art of Illinois," Living Museum Journal, Vol. 65, Nos. 2-3, pp. 3-11 (2003).

Article 3: Melvin L. Fowler and Robert L. Hall, "Late Prehistory of the Illinois Area," in Handbook of American Indians, Vol. 15, pp. 560-568 (1978, Smithsonian Institution Press).

Article 4: Sally A. Chappell, "Cahokia: Cosmic Landscape Architecture," in Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos, pp. 51-77 (2002, University of Chicago Press).

Article 5: Robert E. Warren and John A. Walthall, "Illini Indians in the Illinois Country, 1673-1832" Living Museum Journal, Vol. 60, No. 1, pp. 4-8 (1998).

Article 6: Robert E. Warren and John A. Walthall, "Illini Archaeology: Cultural Heritage and Repatriation," Living Museum Journal, Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 3, 10-14 (1998).

Article 7: J. Joseph Bauxar, "History of the Illinois Area," in Handbook of American Indians, Vol. 15, pp. 594-601 (1978, Smithsonian Institution Press).

Article 8: Robert A Mazrim, "The Origins of the Illinois Frontier: Americans in the Greater American Bottom Region, 1783-1818," in "Now Quite Out of Society": Archaeology and Frontier Illinois, pp. 3-20 (2002, ITARP).

Additional internet resources on anthropology and archaeology, which are suggested only and not required reading for this course, are available at: http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/cfennell/bookmark2.html