In the summer and fall of 2023, ISAS archaeologists conducted archaeological surveys across five Cook County Forest Preserves to re-locate and verify the locations of Paleo and Archaic archaeological sites originally recorded in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of these sites had been originally identified based on surface finds. However, when we can’t see the ground surface we employ a systematic survey method called shovel testing. This entails the excavation of small test holes every 50 feet or so and screening the dirt. If something is found, typically waste flakes from the production of stone tools, we can use the absence or presence of artifacts to define the limits of the site.
During our revisits, ISAS archaeologists excavated lines of small excavations (shovel tests) in a systematic way, sifting the soil in the tests to see if there were artifacts below the surface that might have been missed by the earlier surveys. Shovel test finds were recorded with GPS units, enabling archaeologists to update and refine the earlier hand-drawn maps. In addition to helping find artifacts left by people in the past, this testing also gives archaeologists information on the kinds of soils present, which can help archaeologists understand the past environments experienced by earlier people. This updated site information will be added to the files in the Illinois Inventory of Archaeological Sites. We were fortunate to relocate site 11CK1147 and verify an early component based on the recovery of a circa 8,000 year Fox Valley point, similar to what had been recorded by Forest Preserve naturalist Ed Lace in 1985. We plan on conducting additional investigations of this site in the summer of 2024, so stay tuned for updates!
