Palos Village: An Early Seventeenth-Century Ancestral Ho-Chunk Occupation in the Chicago Area

by Duane Esarey, Kjersti E. Emerson

Just over half a century ago, a series of excavations were undertaken by the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago on the Palos village site located on lands managed by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. Preliminary evaluation of the excavated materials suggested that they represented a Native occupation that likely dated to the poorly known period just prior to European contact. Further analysis was not undertaken at that time, and the materials and documents disappeared from public view—until now. This Palos Village volume is a breakthrough in Midwestern archaeology. With it, all of the tools that archaeologists and historians have long needed to build the bridge that connects Native history across the great gap of AD 1575–1650 period in Illinois are now in hand. The chapters in this volume focus on specific material and historical aspects of this little known period of great change—the early and middle sixteenth century—and provide the all-important bridge that lets the reader see Native American historical continuity where before archaeologists and historians had seen only disruption. People need to hear stories about continuity. We owe them to the citizens of Illinois and to the native people whose ancestors lived through this critical period of history. The period was far more complex than revealed in standard archaeological accounts where one or another artifact type is seen to indicate this or that Tribal Nation. History is seldom that simple and Palos helps to open our eyes to this reality.

302 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021