The Archaeology of Carrier Mills: 10,000 Years in the Saline Valley of Illinois

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The A rch aeology of C ar r ier Mills 10,000 Year s in the Saline Valley of Illinois Jefferies Southern Illinois University Press Printed in the United States of America “Jefferies has written a scholarly, well-documented study that both he and the Peabody Coal Company can look to with pride.”—Illinois Issues Archaeological sites throughout southern Illinois provide a chronicle of change, displaying the varying ways people have lived in that area over the past 10,000 years. One of the richest and most environmentally diverse sites (low uplands, lakes, swamps, the Saline River, the Shawnee Hills) in southern Illinois is approximately two miles south of Carrier Mills. This book focuses on the results of a five-year archaeological investigation at three sites in a 143-acre area known as the Carrier Mills Archaeo­ logical District. This area, rich in archaeological treasures and keys to the prehistoric people of southern Illinois , is also coal mining territory. In cooperation with Peabody Coal Company, archaeologists in this study have sought to learn the ages of the various prehistoric occupations represented at the sites; to better un­ derstand the technology and social organization of these prehistoric people; to better understand the environment; to collect information about diet, health, and physical characteristics of the prehistoric inhabitants; and to investigate the remains of the nineteenth-century Lakeview settlement. Richard W. Jefferies is a professor of anthropology at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of Holocene Hunter-Gatherers of the Lower Ohio River Valley: From the Falls to the Confluence. southern illinois university press www.siupress.com Cover illustration: Food procurement activities as part of Middle Archaic life at the Black Earth site, as depicted by Thomas W. Gatlin. Courtesy of Special Collections, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Archaeology Jeffries_cvr_ebooks.indd 1 10/18/13 2:48 PM TheArchaeologyof Carrier Mills ...