Dickson Mounds

Dickson Mounds

Museum at the site
Location in Illinois today
Location	Lewistown, Illinois,  Fulton County, Illinois,   USA
Region	Fulton County, Illinois
Coordinates	40°21′2.16″N90°6′57.24″W / 40.3506000°N 90.1159000°W / 40.3506000; -90.1159000
History
Founded	800 CE
Abandoned	1250 CE
Cultures	Middle Mississippian culture
Site notes
Excavation dates	1937
Architecture
Architectural styles	burial mounds, platform mound
Architectural details	Number of monuments:
Dickson Mounds
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
NRHP reference No.	72000457
Added to NRHP	May 5, 1972 [1]
Responsible body: State of Illinois

Dickson Mounds is a Native American settlement site and burial mound complex near Lewistown, Illinois. It is located in Fulton County on a low bluff overlooking the Illinois River. It is a large burial complex containing at least two cemeteries, ten superimposed burial mounds, and a platform mound. The Dickson Mounds site was founded by 800 CE and was in use until after 1250 CE. The site is named in honor of chiropractor Don Dickson, who began excavating it in 1927 and opened a private museum that formerly operated on the site. ^[2] Its exhibition of the 237 uncovered skeletons displayed by Dickson was closed in 1992 by then-Gov. Jim Edgar. ^[3]

Contents

• Native life site
• Health and lifestyle
• Social organization
• Trade
• Decline
• Commemoration
• See also
• References
• Further reading
• External links

Don Dickson was a chiropractor and discovered the burial mounds on his family farm. Instead of removing the bones, he only removed the dirt. He covered his excavation with a tent. He later replaced his tent with a building and set up a private museum. ^[4]

The Dickson Mounds Museum is a museum erected on the site in 1972 by the U.S. state of Illinois; it describes the life cycles and culture of Native Americans living in the Illinois River valley over a period of 12,000 years since the last ice age. The museum is part of the Illinois State Museum system. ^[5]

Native life site

While the members of most hunter-gatherer cultures travel extensively or even practice a nomadic lifestyle, the exceptional productivity of the Illinois River valley in fish, shellfish and game made it possible for semi-permanent settlements to develop. Archaeological examination of these sites have generated significant insights into the living conditions of Native Americans over time and the levels of technology they possessed.

A large parcel of the adjacent river bottomland is undergoing preservation and ecosystem restoration as part of the Emiquon Project. The Emiquon wetlands generated much of the food eaten by the people who lived on or near this blufftop site. ^[6] In 2009, an excavation by Michigan State University turned up sherds of pottery, arrowheads and the foundations of houses and other structures that date back to about 1300 CE.

Some of the people who lived here were actually buried in Dickson Mounds itself. Their skeletons were excavated and displayed to the public from the 1930s until 1992, when in a controversial move the burial display was resealed due to Native American concerns. ^[2] It is estimated that there are at least 3,000 burials at this site. The earlier burials were in mounds that were still being built as late as the ninth century, while later burials were in cemeteries. ^[7] This exemplifies the shift away from the earlier focus on burial mounds as the monumental foci of communities lacking large settlements to the later emphasis on platform mounds at the center of towns. ^[7] Mississippians decentralized cemeteries, making their communities rather than their burial places the center of their lives. ^[7] "One group of four Mississippian people buried together appear to have been sacrificed at the Dickson Site". ^[7] Their heads were removed and replaced by pots. This was not a practice that would have been common earlier. ^[7]

After the sealing, the museum was renovated as a series of galleries that attempt to portray the history of the site. For example, the River Valley Gallery exhibition attempts to depict indigenous life patterns here since the close of the last Ice Age, while the "Reflections on Three Worlds" Gallery exhibition attempts to describe how scholars have used archeological findings to generate inductive evidence on the residents' life and culture. ^[5]

Excavators left 248 burials in place after exposure, and these were long displayed inside a specially built museum enclosure. The American Indian objections to the display led to its closure in 1992. After that, three excavated dwellings now remain open to visitors at the site and the museum displays chronicle prehistoric life in the region. ^[7]

Health and lifestyle

Combined, the various burial sites at Dickson Mounds comprehensively represent all of the known eras of Native American culture in Illinois. ^[8] Excavation and analysis of over eight hundred Native American skeletons from these burial sites indicate a transition from hunting and gathering to an agrarian economy and significant health changes in the population as a result of this transition. ^[9] Earlier settlements at Dickson Mounds (950–1050 CE) indicate an economy based primarily on hunting and gathering. ^[10] Hunting and gathering provided this population with a mixed and balanced diet. ^[11] At this time, the population was small and autonomous, traded little with outsiders, and maintained only seasonal camps. ^[10]

From 1050 to 1175, Dickson Mounds underwent a transitional phase, moving towards a mixed economy of hunting and gathering combined with agriculture, particularly the cultivation of maize. ^[10] The population was also developing more permanent settlements and trade networks. ^[10] From 1175 onward to about 1350, the population size expanded significantly and developed complex permanent settlements. ^[10] These changes can be attributed to the increased reliance on agriculture and expansion of long-distance trade during this period. ^[10]

The significant lifestyle changes from a small, nomadic, hunter-gatherer society to a large, sedentary, agrarian society resulted in major health changes among the population. After analyzing trends in bone growth, enamel development, lesions, and mortality, archaeologists determined that there was a major decline in health following the adoption and intensification of agriculture. ^[10] Compared to the hunter-gatherers before them, skeletons of farmers at Dickson Mounds indicate a significant increase in enamel defects, iron-deficiency anemia, bone lesions, and degenerative spinal conditions. ^[9]

The decline in health of Dickson Mounds’ population over time can be attributed to the increased reliance on agriculture, which led to a less varied and less nutritious diet, more strenuous physical labor in the fields, and more crowded permanent settlements that facilitated the spread of infectious diseases. ^[9] Some also say the decline in health is due to the expansion of long-distance trade with larger economic systems, such as Cahokia, which resulted in exploitative relations in which residents of Dickson Mounds were giving away needed food for items of symbolic value. ^[10]

Social organization

Analysis of mortuary behavior from excavations of burial sites at Dickson Mounds provides important insight into the social organization of early Native Americans. Dickson Mounds was a hierarchically organized society. ^[12] The particular objects an individual was buried with largely indicate his or her social status. ^[12] For example, an abundance of tools, copper ornaments, and objects made from imported raw materials suggest high rank of an individual. ^[12] Burials containing pots, spoons, and beads are much more common and indicate a modest social rank. ^[12]

Age and sex were also visible determinants of status, which is uncommon in most hierarchically organized societies. ^[12] Burials were clustered into distinct age-sex classes. ^[12] For example, mature males with high-ranking status characterized one cluster of burials. ^[12] Another cluster of burials contained individuals of younger age and lower status. ^[12] Specific objects signified the status of the various age-sex groups. Whereas objects serving functional purposes (such as cutting or piercing) noted the status of men, cultural and religious artifacts along with ornamental items noted the status of females. ^[12] Marine shells tended to note the status of children. ^[12]

Deep class divisions in the society at Dickson Mounds are also apparent through analysis of the health and heights of the individual skeletons. For example, skeletons from burials show children of an elite class tended to be taller and healthier compared to children from lower classes. ^[8] This is most probably due to better diets and less strenuous labor requirements among the elite class. ^[8]

Trade

Records show that Dickson Mounds was part of a complex trade network with many culturally diverse populations from the Plains area, the Caddoan area, and Cahokia by 1200 CE. ^[13] In particular, Cahokia provided Dickson Mounds with luxury items such as copper ornaments and marine shell necklaces in exchange for food items such as meat and fish. ^[10] The trade of foodstuffs for luxury goods required individuals at Dickson Mounds to generate a surplus of food, resulting in an intensification of agricultural production, which bore serious health and social consequences. ^[10]

Decline

The population at Dickson Mounds is said to have inexplicably vanished during the late thirteenth to mid fourteenth century. ^[14] Possible reasons for the decline of Dickson Mounds are warfare, climate change, and widespread epidemics. ^[14] Climate change may have had detrimental effects on agriculture, particularly the cultivation of maize, on which the population had become so dependent for subsistence and trade. The significant expansions of the population as well as trade increased contact and transfer of infectious diseases and could also be possible causes of decline. ^[14]

Commemoration

The site was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1972. ^[1]

See also

• List of Hopewell sites
• List of Mississippian sites
• List of burial mounds in the United States
• List of archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois

Related Research Articles

The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes.

Cahokia Mounds is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis. The state archaeology park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers 2,200 acres (890 ha), or about 3.5 square miles (9 km²), and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the city covered about 6 square miles (16 km²), included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions, and had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people.

The Mississippian culture were collections of Native American societies that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 to 1600, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center, located in what is present-day southern Illinois.

Wickliffe Mounds is a prehistoric, Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Ballard County, Kentucky, just outside the town of Wickliffe, about 3 miles (4.8 km) from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Archaeological investigations have linked the site with others along the Ohio River in Illinois and Kentucky as part of the Angel phase of Mississippian culture. Wickliffe Mounds is controlled by the State Parks Service, which operates a museum at the site for interpretation of the ancient community. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is also a Kentucky Archeological Landmark and State Historic Site.

Shiloh Indian Mounds Site (40HR7) is an archaeological site of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. It is located beside the Tennessee River on the grounds of the Shiloh National Military Park, in Hardin County of southwestern Tennessee. A National Historic Landmark, it is one of the largest Woodland era sites in the southeastern United States.

A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity. It typically refers to a flat-topped mound, whose sides may be pyramidal.

Spiro Mounds is an Indigenous archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma. The site was built by people from the Arkansas Valley Caddoan culture. that remains from an American 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.

Town Creek Indian Mound is a prehistoric Native American archaeological site located near present-day Mount Gilead, Montgomery County, North Carolina, in the United States. The site, whose main features are a platform mound with a surrounding village and wooden defensive palisade, was built by the Pee Dee, a South Appalachian Mississippian culture people that developed in the region as early as 980 CE. They thrived in the Pee Dee River region of North and South Carolina during the Pre-Columbian era. The Town Creek site was an important ceremonial site occupied from about 1150—1400 CE. It was abandoned for unknown reasons. It is the only ceremonial mound and village center of the Pee Dee located within North Carolina.

The Kincaid Mounds Historic Site c. 1050–1400 CE, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located at the southern tip of present-day U.S. state of Illinois, along the Ohio River. Kincaid Mounds has been notable for both its significant role in native North American prehistory and for the central role the site has played in the development of modern archaeological techniques. The site had at least 11 substructure platform mounds, and 8 other monuments.

The archaeology of Iowa is the study of the buried remains of human culture within the U.S. state of Iowa from the earliest prehistoric through the late historic periods. When the American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase on the reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. During the Historical period European traders and American Indians in Iowa gave way to American settlers and Iowa was transformed into an agricultural state.

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 Caddoan Mississippian culture was a prehistoric Native American culture considered by archaeologists as a variant of the Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians covered a large territory, including what is now Eastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas, Northeast Texas, Southwest Missouri and Northwest Louisiana of the United States.

The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. Two distinct styles exist; the first is a style of carved flint clay found over a wide geographical area but believed to be from the American Bottom area and manufactured at the Cahokia site specifically; the second is a variety of carved and polished locally available stone primarily found in the Tennessee-Cumberland region and northern Georgia. Early European explorers reported seeing stone and wooden statues in native temples, but the first documented modern discovery was made in 1790 in Kentucky, and given as a gift to Thomas Jefferson.

Stone box graves were a method of burial used by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in the Midwestern United States and the Southeastern United States. Their construction was especially common in the Cumberland River Basin, in settlements found around present-day Nashville, Tennessee.

Lynne Sullivan is an American archaeologist and former Curator of Archaeology for the Frank H. McClung Museum located on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville, Tennessee. A graduate of the University of Tennessee (undergraduate) and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Sullivan is renowned for her research and publications on subjects such as Southeastern United States prehistory, Mississippian chiefdoms, mortuary analysis, and archaeological curation. She has been a major contributor to the feminist/gender archaeology movement through her studies in social inequality, gender roles, and the historic significance of women in the development of modern archaeology.

Mississippian copper plates, or plaques, are plain and repousséd plates of beaten copper crafted by peoples of the various regional expressions of the Mississippian culture between 800 and 1600 CE. They have been found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. The plates, found as far afield as Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, were instrumental in the development of the archaeological concept known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Some of the more notable examples are representations of raptorial birds and avian-themed dancing warriors.

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 to 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.

Mound 72 is a small ridgetop mound located roughly 850 meters (2,790 ft) to the south of Monks Mound at Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. Early in the site's history, the location began as a circle of 48 large wooden posts known as a "woodhenge". The woodhenge was later dismantled and a series of mortuary houses, platform mounds, mass burials and eventually the ridgetop mound erected in its place. The mound was the location of the "beaded burial", an elaborate burial of an elite personage thought to have been one of the rulers of Cahokia, accompanied by the graves of several hundred retainers and sacrificial victims.

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.

The Fisher Mound Group is a group of burial mounds with an associated village site located on the DesPlaines River near its convergence with the Kankakee River where they combine to form the Illinois River, in Will County, Illinois, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. It is a multi-component stratified site representing several Prehistoric Upper Mississippian occupations as well as minor Late Woodland and Early Historic components.

References

Further reading

• Rothschild, Nan A (1979). "Mortuary Behavior and Social Organization at Indian Knoll and Dickson Mounds". American Antiquity . 44 (4): 658–675. doi:10.2307/279105. JSTOR   279105. S2CID   162466693.
• Steadman, Dawnie Wolfe (1998). "The Population Shuffle in the Central Illinois Valley: A Diachronic Model of Mississippian Biocultural Interactions". World Archaeology. 30 (2): 306–326. doi:10.1080/00438243.1998.9980412. JSTOR   124988.

External links

• Dickson Mounds website