Mortuary Practices, Cultural Context, Bayesian Chronology, and Maize Consumption among Terminal Late Woodland Societies in Northeastern Illinois. Issue 2 (4th May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Emerson, Thomas E.; Emerson, Kjersti E.; Hedman, Kristin M.; Fort, Matthew A.
• Is Part Of: Midcontinental journal of archaeology. Volume 44:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 149
• Page End: 180
• Publication Date: 2019-05-04
• Subjects: Mortuary studies -- Terminal Late Woodland -- Albee Phase -- Des Plaines Phase -- early maize consumption; Indians of North America -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; United States -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; 977
• DOI: 10.1080/01461109.2019.1565359
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0146-1109

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In 1940, Gretchen Cutter and a WPA crew conducted excavations in the Mound Wi o 5 at the Fisher site in Will County, Illinois. We examined those materials as part of our reanalysis of the Fisher site excavations by George Langford and the University of Chicago. The mound's material culture correlates with the Des Plaines phase but contains strong connections to the east, especially with Albee phase mortuary practices. Calibrated 14 C dates and Bayesian modeling place the Des Plaines phase as contemporary with the Mound Wi o 5 mortuary's primary use during the ninth to eleventh centuries. There is isotopic evidence of a mixed C3 /C4 diet with some maize consumption. Mound Wi o 5 represents the only Terminal Late Woodland collective mortuary facility currently known in northeastern Illinois. The identification of such multigenerational communal Terminal Late Woodland mortuary practices lends support to the contention that they provided the cultural base for the emergence of the distinctive Langford Tradition accretional mortuary mounds.