East Central Archaeological Society News and Happenings

East Central Illinois Archaeological Society

News and Happenings

Piatt County Project

In 2006 the ECIAS membership initiated a volunteer project to analyze and inventory a collection of projectile points and other various surface-collected artifacts from Piatt County, Illinois. The collections were made in the 1960s by the late J. K. Felts of Monticello, Illinois who was a history teacher at the local high school for many years and had a long interest in local prehistory. Mr. Felts was an ideal collector from a professional archaeologist's standpoint. He kept collections from individual sites separate and labeled his artifacts with his own site number system. He also shared his knowledge of the local sites with professional archaeologists. While his collection consists predominantly of projectile points he also collected informal tools, chipping debitage, and cobble tools. In the late 1970s J. K. Felts donated his collection to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Anthropology. Unfortunately, his site location map has since been misplaced so we currently do not know the specific location of his sites across the landscape of Piatt County, preventing his sites from being registered with the Illinois Archaeological Survey. Despite this drawback, his collection can still provide some pertinent data on the prehistory of Piatt County and the upper Sangamon River drainage area.

J.K. Felts

From the sites we have already completed and a cursory examination of other sites, artifacts representative of most eras comprising the known span of Illinois prehistory (about 12,000 years) are present in the Felts collection. The evidence indicates that individual sites were used repeatedly over time by various prehistoric groups. Points associated with the Archaic era (ca 8,000 to 600 B.C.) are especially well represented. Examples of sites occupied over the last 2,400 years of prehistory (the Woodland era) are also present but are not numerous, which is typical of the situation across much of the interior of Illinois. Groups of this era tended to focus their settlements within and bordering the larger river valleys.

Artifact Examples from the Felts Site Collection.

The goal of this project is to give members hands-on experience working with actual artifacts from the local area while learning the basic procedures professional archaeologists use when they analyze collections. We think it will be a great way for members to learn about the artifacts associated with Illinois' extensive and varied prehistoric past. Eventually, when the inventory process is complete we hope to produce a summary report of our investigations.

For each artifact members will be recording details on basic shape characteristics involving the blade and haft element and taking a series of specific measurements. Comparisons will be made to examples in published point guide books and a "type name" and a chronological age will be assigned when possible. The type of material used to manufacture the artifact will also recorded and this should prove to be an interesting aspect of this study. East-central Illinois lacks rock outcrops with deposits of chert but suitable material of variable quality can be found within glacial till deposits. An examination of several site assemblages thus far shows glacial material was frequently used, but chert material was also obtained from a variety of sources in western and southern Illinois and in western Indiana that range up to several hundred miles away. ECIAS has been aided in this aspect of the project by the loan of chert samples from Illinois and neighboring states from IAAA member Bob Nale who directs Midwest Archaeological Lithics Lab, an extensive nationwide collection of chert samples.

The volunteer lab sessions are currently being scheduled two nights a month, on Tuesday nights from 7:00 to 9:00 at the offices of the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Resource Program (ITARP) on the University of Illinois campus at the Nuclear Physics Lab, 23 East Stadium Dr., Champaign. Free parking is available on the street or in the lot south of the building. The March session dates will be on the 21st and 28th. Beyond that the schedule is somewhat open and will be dependent on what will work out best for the majority of the volunteers. At some point we will probably incorporate a half day Saturday session. The collections are large enough that we anticipate working on them throughout most of 2006. Anyone interested in participating in these lab sessions (or just observing) should contact Doug Jackson (217-244-7487; email dkjackso@uiuc.edu) for additional details.

Contact Us:

President: Brenda Beck

Editor of Illinois Antiquity: Alice Berkson