Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program
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As part of its mission ITARP seeks to disseminate information about Illinois' rich archaeological heritage to the public and to professional communities.  This effort includes giving formal public lectures and creating exhibits as well as giving talks to local school children.  ITARP researchers are also active in presenting the results of their work at professional conferences and publishing numerous articles and books. 
    ITARP Exhibits and Outreach    
       

 

2009 Chicago/Rockford International Airport Archaeological Exhibit

In February 2009 ITARP was contacted by Rockford Airport authorities about creating an archaeological exhibit in the main terminal building. In conceptualizing the exhibit ITARP wanted to highlight the archaeological excavations done during the expansion of the airport in the mid 1990s.

The Shumway homesite, located at the Valhall site (11WO354), was selected as the focus of the exhibit due to the wealth of information it contained about life in the early days of Winnebago County.

The exhibit, written by ITARP Outreach Coordinator Robert Mazrim and designed by Mike Lewis and Linda Alexander (ITARP Production) consists of a large, backlit poster—featuring a background image of the Rock River with images of artifacts from the Shumway site in the foreground. Artifacts used in the poster are also displayed in the exhibit case.


click on poster to view PDF version

The case consists of two levels. The top level, “Life on the Illinois Prairie 1836-1950,” features a large two-sided poster “Progress and Preservation” with an aerial view of the airport with previous historic and prehistoric occupations marked and “Footprints of a Family Farm” detailing the Shumway family’s arrival and life in Winnebago county. A variety of ceramics, including plates, tea cups, and a chamber pot, along with forks, one with a carved bone handle, are on exhibit.

The lower level, “The Little Things in Life,” displays a range of glass, metallic, bone, clay, and prehistoric artifacts discovered during excavations at the Shumway Homesite.

The exhibit was installed in late May 2009 and will be on display in the main terminal building of the Rockford Airport for a year.


click on case to view PDF version of poster


2008 Science and Archaeology Symposium in Urbana

This one-day conference, held on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, hosted by ITARP and organized by Sarah Wisseman, Director of ATAM, took place on November 7, 2008. See the program for more details.

In its broadest sense, archaeological science, or archaeometry, is the interface between archaeology and the natural and physical sciences. Th is interdisciplinary fi eld encompasses both the study of early technologies (flint knapping, ceramics, metal-working, weaving, basketry, etc.) and analyses of archaeological materials using modern instrumental techniques. Early archaeometric research was dominated by dating, structural, compositional, and provenance studies of primarily inorganic materials (e.g. stone, ceramics, and metals). As the field has grown, new applications in biochemistry, soil science, medicine, geophysical prospection, and computer imaging have attracted a host of new specialists in areas such as the reconstruction of early environments and diets by analyzing bones and teeth, tracing the migration of peoples via ancient DNA, textile analysis, site mapping, and digital enhancement of ancient writing.


The Science and Archaeology Symposium Participants

 

 


2008 Urbana Conference on the Early Paleoindian Colonization
of the North American Midcontinent

This invited conference and workshop, organized by Daniel Amick (Loyola University) and Thomas E. Emerson (ITARP), and hosted by the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, was organized to discuss perspectives on Late Pleistocene human occupation of the Midcontinent region and to debate their relevance for current anthropological models of New World colonization. Considerable progress in documenting the early archaeological record of this region has been accomplished in the past few decades, including accumulation of a robust record of Clovis occupation as well as identification of intriguing evidence that predates Clovis. Comparative evaluation of these adaptations within the changing environments adjacent to the Laurentide ice sheet offers an exceptional framework for learning how early human groups in North America moved into frontier areas and coped with rapid environmental changes. 


The Urbana Conference on the Early Paleoindian Colonization of the North American Midcontinent Participants

The scope includes theoretical arguments about origins, colonization and migration; organization of technology and settlement; economic adaptations and land use; time-space systematics; and evaluation of methodological strategies used to investigate these problems. The improved knowledge from this workshop about early technology and land use throughout the Midcontinent and adjacent regions will provide a stronger foundation for understanding human colonization of deglaciated landscapes as well as determining the origins of Clovis and the colonization history of North America.

Publication of an edited volume based on these proceedings will provide an essential contribution for understanding the significance of human colonization in this region and throughout the New World.


The Archaeological Heritage of Illinois Exhibit

Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dates: August 31, 2007 - June 1, 2009

Prepared by professional archaeologists at the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program (ITARP), this temporary exhibition presents objects of material culture related to native peoples who lived in Illinois from approximately 9500 B.C.E. to C.E. 1800. More than 100 items are on display, including clay figurines, bracelets and other ornaments, spear points and fish hooks, pipes, cooking jars, digging and weaving tools and ceremonial objects of exquisite quality and variety.

Story on the Exhibit
News Bureau, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Watch Channel 3 News Segment

 

 

 

 


2004 Urbana Conference on the Archaic Societies of the Midcontinent

This conference, hosted by Thomas E. Emerson, Dale L. McElrath, and Andrew C. Fortier, Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, UIUC, addressed one of the cutting edge issues that has arisen in North American archaeology in the last 15 years – the social and political complexity of early peoples in the Eastern United States. The early native inhabitants of North America have long been thought of as living in family groups or small bands, having an egalitarian lifestyle, and subsisting by hunting, gathering, and collecting natural resources. The native lifestyle during the period from about 8,000 to 1,000 BC has been characterized as one of “simple societies evidencing traditional and unchanging technologies, i.e., colloquially, living close to Nature”. This view, especially prevalent in the popular press, has to some extent also invaded academic circles.

        
       

The Urbana Conference on the Archaic Societies of the Midcontinent Participants
       
       


The discovery of large mound complexes built in the third to fifth millennium BC in the lower Mississippian River valley has dramatically transformed scholarly views of these early societies. To assess the impact of these new findings over three dozen of the top Archaic period researchers assembled at the Levis Center in early December 2004. Participants included scholars from Canada to the Gulf Coast. An intense two-day session of presentations, discussions, and artifact examinations produced a conceptual revolution in our understanding of early native societies. The newly presented evidence indicated that Archaic groups were incredibly diverse and might range from those that were politically, socially, and economically complex to groups with very simple social organizations. The cultural evolutionary model that dominates so much of North American archaeological was shown to be intrinsically flawed and in serious need of revision.

The new evidence of Archaic societies indicates that many may have been at least partially sedentary, had inherent inequalities in the social and political realm, may have had at least situational hierarchies, and often engaged in the construction of planned monumental structures of earth.

The results of these new revisionist syntheses will be published in a volume on Archaic Societies in the Midcontinent scheduled to come out in 2009.

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Illinois Archaeology Awareness Month Poster
September 2004

ITARP designed the poster for Illinois' Archaeology Awareness Month Poster in 2004.The theme for this year's poster was "Art and Archaeology: Spirit of the Ancients." The theme was chosen to dovetail into Hero, Hawk and Open Hand: Ancient Art of the Midwest and Southeast, an exhibit which opened at the Art Institute of Chicago in fall 2004.

Illinois Archaeology Awareness Month programs inform Illinoisans about the state's cultural heritage as revealed through archaeology; illustrate how prudent management of archaeological and historic resources provides educational, cultural and economic benefits to all citizens; and actively engage Illinoisans in the preservation of these nonrenewable resources.

 

       

 

Illinois Archaeology Awareness Month Poster
September 2003

This poster, prepared for Archaeology Awareness Month, by the ITARP production office, helped to promote Illinois Archaeological Awareness Month (IAAM). IAAM is held each year in September. The overreaching goal of IAAM is threefold: to inform Illinoisians about the state's cultural heritage as revealed through archaeology; to illustrate how prudent management of archaeological and historic resources provides educational, cultural and economic benefits to all citizens; and, to actively engage Illinoisians in the preservation of these nonrenewable resources.

The 2003 theme–"Prairie Encounters Frontier Archaeology in Illinois"–highlights the archaeology of the period from initial contact between Native Americans and European explorers in the seventeenth century, up to the closing of the Illinois frontier around 1850.

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Application of a PIMA SPTM to Pipestone Flint Clay Studies of Two Native American Cultures

 

This poster was prepared for the Clay Minerals Society meeting (June 2000) and illustrates the utilization of the nondestructive PIMA instrument as an analytical tool for identifying the source material of artifacts using near infra-red reflectance spectroscopy. The Cahokia figurines, previously analyzed by x-ray diffraction (Sourcing the Cahokia-Style Figurines), served as the test subject for this new technique. This work was a collaborative effort by the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials (ATAM), ITARP, and ISGS; this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. 9971179.

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PIMA Thumbnail
   

This traveling exhibit of the Grand Villiage of the Illinois opened in June 1998 and began its two-year tour of Illinois the following month. The Grand Villiage of the Illinois, located across from Starved Rock State Park, was the site of the historic 1673 meeting between French explorers Marquette and Joilet and the Illinois Indians. The exhibit includes two display cases of artifacts, and three-panel podium of images and text, and a 1673 aerial view diorama of what is now known as Illinois. This exhibit was a cooperative effert between ITARP and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA) and largely funded by James Gallop and his wife (of northern Illinois).

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Urbana Late Woodland Cultures of the Midwest Conference

This conference, hosted by Thomas E. Emerson, Dale L. McElrath, Andrew C. Fortier, and the Department of Anthropology UIUC, was conceived through a need to revisit the older cultural-historical reconstructions of the midcontinent Late Woodland period (ca. A.D. 400-900). Such reconstructions suggested the Late Woodland was a period of unending monotony and cultural stasis inhabited by groups characterized as the "good gray cultures."

During the last decade large-scale and largely unsynthesized cultural resource management research conducted across the Midwest and Midsouth suggested serious revisions of his model. To this end, more than forty regional scholars actively studying the midcontinental Late Woodland cultures were invited to participate in a working session on Late Woodland research at the UIUC campus. Small groups of scholars presented papers on the "state of the art" in their specialities over a three-day period.

In addition to the paper presentation and discussion sessions, there were opportunities for participants to examine large artifact assemblages brought by regional specialists. These sessions and the assoicated discussions have produced a new vision of the Late Woodland period as one of intense social and political dynamics, dramatic population increases, and cultural heterogeniety.

The results of these new systheses, a twenty-six chapter volume entitled, Late Woodland Societies: Tradition and Transformation Across the Midcontinent, edited by T. E. Emerson, D. L. McElrath, and A. C. Fortier is available through the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Summer 2000.

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Building Illinois' Future, Preserving Our Past

For the 1996 Illinois State Fair, ITARP prepared an outreach exhibit illustrating the successful 40-year partnership between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT). Under this cooperative venture, the UIUC has carried out archaeology all over Illinois and made the results of the effort available to both professional and public audiences. The artifacts included with the display are from two archaeological sites and represent three stages of Illinois history. The faience and stoneware are from Fort de Chartres, the site of a military fort located in Randolph County on the Mississippi River. The items from the exhibit are from an occupation during ca. 1750-1763 and from a farm site (Madison County) dating from the 1810's to 1860. The majority of the artifacts are from the 1830-1850 component.

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Sourcing the Cahokia-Style Figurines

This poster display showcases the local development of late prehistoric North American Cahokian symbolism and art through the sourcing of the raw material used in that art. "Sourcing the Cahokia-Style Figurines" discusses the large stone figurines discovered on the FAI-270 Highway Project. Originally thought to be from the Oklahoma area, research by Randall E. Hughes, Illinois State Geological Survey, demonstrated that the raw material used in their manufacture was actually from the local Missouri area. This research was jointly sponsored by ISGS, ITARP, and IDOT.

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Harvesting the Past

The Museum of Natural History housed the "Harvesting the Past" from 1999 to 2002.  This exhibit featured Native North American horticultural practices and was divided into three parts: gathering, gardening, and farming. The exhibit also highlighted how highway archaeologists find, process, and identify prehistoric plant remains, while focusing on (1) the evolution of plant usage; and, (2) tools used by Native American Illinois groups to cultivate and gather these plants. A variety of paneled photographs and illustrations were employed, as well as actual artifacts and excavated plant remains. The effort was part of a cooperative effort between IDOT, UIUC, and the Museum of Natural History.

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Crops Before Corn

This exhibit, prepared for Mary Simon by ITARP production, was sponsored by the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign (UIUC), the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), and the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program (ITARP). "Crops Before Corn" dispels the common belief that corn and beans were the first crops grown by native North American groups. Information in the exhibit includes the parameters of paleoethnobotany, pre-corn crops, and the evolution of early Illinois plants grown primarily for subsistence or technology.

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Progress and Preservation Poster