This volume summarizes the results of archaeological excavations at nine frontier-context archeological sites in rural Illinois. The excavations were conducted by the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program (University of Illinois, Champaign) for the Department of Transportation between 2002 and 2005. Each of the sites shares a common socio-temporal context. That is, they were occupied for a short period during the American frontier period of Illinois, which closed around 1845. They are also united in the fact that they represent all of the short-term pre-1850 sites excavated by ITARP for road construction projects between 2002 and 2005. Each of the sites consists of a domestic component occupied between 1810 and 1845. Additionally, one of these sites (the Rockyford site) also includes a blacksmith shop from this period.
These sites, reported using consistent analytical terms and methods, provide an opportunity to revisit certain themes and hypothesis presented in the Mazrim 2002a summary volume “Now Quite Out of Society”: Archaeology and Frontier Illinois. Provided below, then, are nine individual chapters that present the results of investigations at each site. Each of these chapters is divided into three parts: archival setting, results of excavations, and results of artifact analysis. These are designed to provide the reader with a thorough discussion of the features, artifacts, interpretations, and apparent patterning at each site. This information will also be the basis of short-form testing reports submitted to the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, but is presented here in a manner more suitable for publication. The final chapter of the volume serves as a summary and synthesis that is structured around frontier-context research themes presented in Mazrim 2002a. Those themes, and the patterns derived during the 2002 study, will be presented and tested using the new data from these additional sites.
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