A Reassessment of Upper Mississippian Habitations and Chronology at the Fisher Mounds and Village Site in Northeastern Illinois

Abstract

The Fisher Mounds and Village site in northern Illinois was the location of numerous burial mounds and cemeteries, as well as dozens of earth-ringed structure depressions. In the late 1920s, avocational archaeologist George Langford investigated the site, briefly joined by University of Chicago student crews in 1927 and 1928. A Works Project Administration (WPA) crew later revisited the site in 1940–1941. The excavations revealed three distinct archaeological cultural groups representing the Late Woodland Des Plaines phase and the Upper Mississippian Langford and Fisher phases—all of which were first observed and described at this site. Archaeologists at the time had difficulty distinguishing the discrete occupations at the site given the complex stratigraphy, unrefined excavation techniques, and mixing of deposits. The available collection and records had never been completely evaluated until 2005 when the authors began collating and analyzing the documents and materials which, through time, had become dispersed across various institutions. This new analysis defines the occurrence of late precontact contemporaneous ethnic differentiation marked by variation in ceramic and domestic structural evidence, documents violent confrontation, and illustrates the fluid nature of population movements in this period. Furthermore, this research has demonstrated the irreplaceable value of these legacy collections in understanding American Indian history.