Riverton Site | |
Location | Northern side of 1150th Avenue immediately west of the Wabash River, northeast of Palestine [1] |
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Nearest city | Palestine, Illinois |
Coordinates | 39°1′18″N87°34′32″W / 39.02167°N 87.57556°W Coordinates: 39°1′18″N87°34′32″W / 39.02167°N 87.57556°W |
NRHP reference No. | 78001141 |
Added to NRHP | December 18, 1978 [2] |
The Riverton Site is an archaeological site located immediately west of the Wabash River and northeast of Palestine, Illinois. The site, which dates from the Late Archaic period, is the type site of the Riverton culture. The Riverton culture, of which only three known sites had been discovered as of 1978, inhabited the central Wabash Valley and had distinct methods of making tools. The remains at the Riverton site can be separated into two areas: a manufacturing area with pits and a significant number of discarded tools, and a residential area with the clay floors of homes. The site was first noticed in the 1950s, and Dr. Frank Winters of the Illinois State Museum began excavations at the site in 1961. [3]
The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1978. [2] It is one of three archaeological sites on the National Register in Crawford County; the other two sites, the Swan Island Site and the Stoner Site, were the other two known Riverton culture sites as of 1978.
The Eastern Agricultural Complex of the United States is one of about 10 places in the world where humans independently domesticated wild plants and initiated agriculture. [4] The Riverton Site is one of the best known and earliest sites of extensive cultivation in the eastern U.S. By 1800 BCE, Native Americans were cultivating several different native plants at Riverton for food and containers. The cultivated plants were bottle gourd ( Lagenaria siceraria ), marshelder ( Iva annua var. macrocarpa), sunflower ( Helianthus annuus var. macrocarpus), and 2 cultivated varieties of chenopod ( Chenopodium berlandieri ), as well as the possible cultivation of squash ( Cucurbita pepo ) and little barley ( Hordeum pusillum ). [5]
Ten house sites have been discovered at Riverton, indicating a population of 50 to 100 people in the community. Among the hearths and storage pits associated with the houses, archaeologists found a number of plant remains, including a large number of seeds of chenopods (goosefoot or lamb's quarters). Some of the chenopod seeds had husks only one third as thick as those of wild seeds. Riverton farmers had bred them selectively to produce a seed easier to access than wild varieties of the same plant. [6]
Einkorn wheat can refer either to the wild species of wheat, Triticum boeoticum, or to the domesticated form, Triticum monococcum. The wild and domesticated forms are either considered separate species, as here, or as subspecies: Triticum monococcum subsp. boeoticum (wild) and T. monococcum subsp. monococcum (domesticated). Einkorn is a diploid species of hulled wheat, with tough glumes ('husks') that tightly enclose the grains. The cultivated form is similar to the wild, except that the ear stays intact when ripe and the seeds are larger. The domestic form is known as "petit épeautre" in French, "Einkorn" in German, "einkorn" or "littlespelt" in English, "piccolo farro" in Italian and "escanda menor" in Spanish. The name refers to the fact that each spikelet contains only one grain.
The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible. These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants, learning how they grew and developed. This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants.
Chenopodium album is a fast-growing weedy annual plant in the genus Chenopodium. Though cultivated in some regions, the plant is elsewhere considered a weed. Common names include lamb's quarters, melde, goosefoot, wild spinach and fat-hen, though the latter two are also applied to other species of the genus Chenopodium, for which reason it is often distinguished as white goosefoot. Chenopodium album is extensively cultivated and consumed in Northern India as a food crop known as bathua.
In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeologists distinguishing the Mississippian period, from 1000 CE to European contact as a separate period. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic term for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the agriculturalist Mississippian cultures. The Eastern Woodlands cultural region covers what is now eastern Canada south of the Subarctic region, the Eastern United States, along to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Eastern Agricultural Complex in the woodlands of eastern North America was one of about 10 independent centers of plant domestication in the pre-historic world. Incipient agriculture dates back to about 5300 BCE. By about 1800 BCE the Native Americans of the woodlands were cultivating several species of food plants, thus beginning a transition from a hunter-gatherer economy to agriculture. After 200 BCE when maize from Mexico was introduced to the Eastern Woodlands, the Native Americans of the eastern United States and adjacent Canada slowly changed from growing local indigenous plants to a maize-based agricultural economy. The cultivation of local indigenous plants other than squash and sunflower declined and was eventually abandoned. The formerly domesticated plants returned to their wild forms.
The Grand Village of the Illinois, also called Old Kaskaskia Village, is a site significant for being the best documented historic Native American village in the Illinois River valley. It was a large agricultural and trading village of Native Americans of the Illinois confederacy, located on the north bank of the Illinois River near the present town of Utica, Illinois. French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette came across it in 1673. The Kaskaskia, a tribe of the Illiniwek people lived in the village. It grew rapidly after a French mission and fur trading post were established there in 1675, to a population of about 6,000 people in about 460 houses. Around 1691 the Kaskaskia and other Illiniwek moved further south, abandoning the site due to pressure from an Iroquois invasion from the northeast.
The John Roy Site is a pre-Columbian archaeological site located roughly 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Clayton in Adams County, Illinois. The site consists of a Woodland period village site inhabited from roughly 450 to 650 A.D.; five burial mounds are also associated with the site. The site's upland location is uncommon for village sites from the period, which have mostly been located in river valleys. The location may have been affected by the development of plant cultivation at the time, and extensive seed deposits at the site provide insight into developing agricultural practices. In addition, preserved remnants of woven artifacts have been found at the site; such items are rare and may help explain how weaving developed during the period.
The Swan Island Site is an archaeological site in Crawford County, Illinois, located north of the point where the Wabash River crosses the Lawrence County line. The shell midden site, located on a sandstone ridge in the Wabash River flood plain, was inhabited by people of the Riverton culture in the Late Archaic period. As of 1978, it is one of three known sites associated with the culture, which lived in the central Wabash Valley and had distinct methods of making tools. Archaeologists first found the site in the 1950s, and Dr. Howard Winters of the Illinois State Museum began excavations there in 1961.
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.
Chenopodium berlandieri, also known by the common names pitseed goosefoot, huauzontle, lamb's quarters, and lambsquarters is an annual herbaceous plant in the family Amaranthaceae.
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.
The Early Basketmaker II Era was the first Post-Archaic cultural period of Ancient Pueblo People. The era began with the cultivation of maize in the northern American southwest, although there was not a dependence upon agriculture until about 500 BC. It is preceded by the Archaic-Early Basketmaker Era, and is followed by the Late Basketmaker II Era.
The Archaic–Early Basketmaker Era was an Archaic cultural period of ancestors to the Ancient Pueblo People. They were distinguished from other Archaic people of the Southwest by their basketry which was used to gather and store food. They became reliant on wild seeds, grasses, nuts and fruit for food and changed their movement patterns and lifestyle by maximizing the edible wild food and small game within a geographical region. Manos and metates began to be used to process seeds and nuts. With the extinction of megafauna, hunters adapted their tools, using spears with smaller projectile points and then atlatl and darts. Simple dwellings made of wood, brush and earth provided shelter.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the prehistoric people of Colorado, which covers the period of when Native Americans lived in Colorado prior to contact with the Domínguez–Escalante expedition in 1776. People's lifestyles included nomadic hunter-gathering, semi-permanent village dwelling, and residing in pueblos.
The agricultural practices of the Native Americans inhabiting the American Southwest, which includes the states of Arizona and New Mexico plus portions of surrounding states and neighboring Mexico, are influenced by the low levels of precipitation in the region. Irrigation and several techniques of water harvesting and conservation were essential for successful agriculture. To take advantage of limited water, the southwestern Native Americans utilized irrigation canals, terraces (trincheras), rock mulches, and floodplain cultivation. Success in agriculture enabled some native Americans to live in communities which may have numbered as many as 40,000 people as compared to their former lives as hunter-gatherers in which their bands numbered only a few dozen.
The Hubele Mounds and Village Site are an archaeological site in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Located near the community of Maunie in White County, the site has received recognition from the federal government because of its archaeological value. Due to the lack of recent excavations, the site's dates of habitation are debated, ranging from 400 BC in some estimates to AD 1000 in others, but all agree on the site's significance to understanding the prehistory of the region.
Agriculture on the prehistoric Great Plains describes the agriculture of the Indian peoples of the Great Plains of the United States and southern Canada in the Pre-Columbian era and before extensive contact with European explorers, which in most areas occurred by 1750. The principal crops grown by Indian farmers were maize (corn), beans, and squash, including pumpkins. Sunflowers, goosefoot, tobacco, gourds, and plums, were also grown.
The Moccasin Bluff Site is an archaeological site located along the Red Bud Trail and the St. Joseph River north of Buchanan, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and has been classified as a multi-component Prehistoric site with the major component dating to the Late Woodland/Upper Mississippian period.
The Palos site (Ck-26) is located on the Cal-Sag Canal in Cook County, Illinois, United States, near the city of Chicago. It is classified as a Protohistoric to early Historic site with Upper Mississippian affiliation.
The Oak Forest Site (11Ck-53) is located in Oak Forest, Cook County, Illinois, near the city of Chicago. It is classified as a late Prehistoric to Protohistoric/Early Historic site with Upper Mississippian Huber affiliation.