Gregory Perino

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Gregory Herman Perino (February 25, 1914 - July 4, 2005) [1] was an American self-taught professional archaeologist, author, consultant, and the last living founder of the Illinois State Archaeological Society. Perino was considered one of the foremost experts on Native American artifacts. He died July 4, 2005 at the age of 91. [2]

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Early life and career

Originally from Belleville, Illinois, Perino started exploring Cahokia and the surrounding Mississippi River bluffs as a teenager. His fascination with the past and his innate ability to locate and meticulously excavate prehistoric cemeteries and burial mounds soon led him into a career as a self-taught professional archaeologist, first with the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma; then with the Foundation for Illinois Archeology in Kampsville, Illinois; and finally with the Museum of the Red River in Idabel, Oklahoma.

Perino is perhaps best known for his guidebooks for North American projectile points. In Illinois, he is well known for his numerous excavations of Middle and Late Woodland, and Mississippian mortuary sites in the Illinois, Mississippi, and Kaskaskia River valleys. However, his earlier work at Cahokia is of equal importance. His 1956 Gilcrease Institute excavations into Mound 34 uncovered a series of unusual artifacts and deposits from a copper workshop, that was subsequently lost for 60 years but rediscovered in 2010. It is the only known copper workshop to be found at a Mississippian site. [3] Perinos many contributions to Illinois archaeology are well documented through his routinely published reports on discoveries. For Gregory Perino's enduring contributions to Illinois archaeology, he was accorded the IAS Public Service Award.

Legacy

His most important contributions were to artifact typology, mound construction and use, and mortuary practices. His works on artifact typology are well known, especially where projectile points are concerned. Beginning with Perino's collaborative work with Robert Bell and later publishing his own monographs on preforms, points, and knives of the North American Indians reside on the bookshelves of vocational and professional archaeologists alike.

Perino's contributions to our understanding of material culture also include exceptional specimens such as the bone scepter from the Lawrence Gay mound, the cache of North preforms from the North site, and the copper object and beaver effigy pipe from the Bedford Mounds.

As illustrated by his many profile and plan-view maps, Perino documented mound structure and provided insights into mound construction and uses, especially the construction and function of log tombs in Middle Woodland mounds. He provided detailed descriptions of burial contexts and, in turn, enhanced the understanding of mortuary practices.

Selective Publications by Greg Perino

Related Research Articles

Projectile point Primitive weapon component

In North American archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have been kept in the hand, such as knives, spears, axes, hammers, and maces.

Folsom point

Folsom points are a distinct form of knapped stone projectile points associated with the Folsom tradition of North America. The style of tool-making was named after the Folsom Site located in Folsom, New Mexico, where the first sample was found by George McJunkin within the bone structure of a bison, an animal hunted by the Folsom people in New Mexico, in 1908. The Folsom point was identified as a unique style of projectile point in 1926.

Robert E. Bell, was an archaeologist. He was a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma from 1947-1980, and Curator of Archaeology at the Stovall Museum of Science and History at the University of Oklahoma. He pioneered work on the Spiro Mounds archaeological site in eastern Oklahoma.

Spiro Mounds United States historic place

Spiro Mounds is an archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma that remains from an indigenous Indian culture that was part of the major northern Caddoan Mississippian culture. The 80-acre site is located within a floodplain on the southern side of the Arkansas River. The modern town of Spiro developed approximately seven miles to the south.

Gilcrease Museum Art Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a growing collection of art and artifacts from Central and South America. The museum is named for Thomas Gilcrease, an oil man and avid art collector, who began the collection. He deeded the collection, as well as the building and property, to the City of Tulsa in 1958. Since July 1, 2008, Gilcrease Museum has been managed by a public-private partnership of the City of Tulsa and the University of Tulsa. The Helmerich Center for American Research at Gilcrease Museum was added in 2014 at a cost of $14 million to provide a secure archival area where researchers can access any of the more than 100,000 books, documents, maps and unpublished materials that have been acquired by the museum.

Stoner Site Archaeological site in Illinois, US

The Stoner Site is a substantial archaeological site in the far eastern portion of the U.S. state of Illinois. Discovered during the Great Depression, the site has produced large numbers of artifacts from a prehistoric village that was once located there, and archaeological investigations have shown it to be one of the area's most important archaeological sites for the Allison-Lamotte culture. After more than a decade of fruitful research and predictions of potentially rich results from future work, it has been designated a historic site.

Upper Mississippian culture Archaeological culture in North America

The Upper Mississippian cultures were located in the Upper Mississippi basin and Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. They were in existence from approximately A.D. 1000 until the Protohistoric and early Historic periods.

Bynum Mound and Village Site United States historic place

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Etowah plates

The Etowah plates, including the Rogan Plates, are a collection of Mississippian copper plates discovered in Mound C at the Etowah Indian Mounds near Cartersville, Georgia. Many of the plates display iconography that archaeologists have classified as part of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (S.E.C.C.), specifically "Birdman" imagery associated with warriors and the priestly elite. The plates are a combination of foreign imports and local items manufactured in emulation of the imported style. The designs of the Rogan plates are in the Classic Braden style from the American Bottom area. It is generally thought that some of the plates were manufactured at Cahokia before ending up at sites in the Southeast.

Mississippian copper plates

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Mound 34

Mound 34 is a small platform mound located roughly 400 metres (1,300 ft) to the east of Monks Mound at Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. Excavations near Mound 34 from 2002–2010 revealed the remains of a copper workshop, although the one of a kind discovery had been previously found in the late 1950s by archaeologist Gregory Perino, but lost for 60 years. It is so far the only remains of a copper workshop found at a Mississippian culture archaeological site.

Emmons Cemetery Site

The Emmons Cemetery Site, also known as the Emmons Site, is a Middle Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Kerton Township, Fulton County, Illinois, on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Illinois River to its east. The location was a used as a cemetery and several unique and rare items were found interred with the burials.

Carlston Annis Shell Mound United States historic place

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Hubele Mounds and Village Site United States historic place

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Walker-Hooper Site Archaeological site in [[Wisconsin]], United States

The Walker-Hooper Site (47-GL-65) is a multicomponent prehistoric site complex located on the Grand River in the Upper Fox River drainage area in Green Lake County, Wisconsin. It consisted of at least 2 village sites and several mound groups. It was excavated by S.A. Barrett under the auspices of the Milwaukee Public Museum in 1921 and again in 1967 by Guy Gibbon of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The major component of the site is an Upper Mississippian Oneota palisaded village. Other components were also present, mainly Late Woodland but also including Archaic, Early Woodland and Middle Woodland.

References

  1. "Gregory Perino". Belleville News-Democrat. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  2. Ray Fraser. "A tribute to Greg Perino (1914-2005)". Central States Archaeological Societies. Archived from the original on 2010-06-16. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
  3. Pawlaczyk, George (16 Feb 2010), Copper men: Archaeologists uncover Stone Age copper workshop near Monk's Mound. , retrieved 2010-11-08