From Kaskaskia to Sangamo: Aspects of Urban Archaeology

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Aspects of Urban Archaeology

I took this photo in an 1840s-1850s residential neighborhood in St. Louis. A house once stood here, torn down long ago. More recently, the lot was paved over with asphalt. The fill of the cellar associated with house gradually compacted and slumped, causing depressions to form in the asphalt above. Now, when it rains, pre-Civil War archaeological features are plainly visible. Imagine what may lie beneath.

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About the "Illinois Country"

The “Illinois Country” was the name used by the French to refer to a large region located south of Lake Michigan, surrounding the confluences of the Mississippi, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers. The name referred to the indigenous residents of the region – the Illinois Tribe – who moved to the region around 1600. The central portion of this region became the State of Illinois in 1818.

French traders and priests were aware of the Illinois region by the 1640s. The French Canadian priest Father Jacques Marquette established a mission among the Illinois in the 1670s, and the legendary explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle built the first fort in the region in 1680.

The Illinois Country became a French colony in 1717, and was home to several French trading and agricultural villages, as well as Fort de Chartres on the Mississippi. The British arrived in 1765, and British merchants affiliated with Benjamin Franklin were selling their wares in the old French towns when George Rogers Clark captured the Illinois County for the Americans in 1778.

Illinois was the scene of rapidly expanding frontier agricultural settlement by 1800, and the last frontier settlements reached northern Illinois by the 1840s. The well-known “Sangamo Country” frontier (in central Illinois) was home to a young Abraham Lincoln.

Historical archaeology has been practiced in Illinois since 1918 – some of the earliest in the country. Both research-based and salvage-oriented excavations have examined dozens of sites spanning the French, British, and early American periods.