Hot off the press!

Past and present ISAS staff have authored papers in the recently issued Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology (MCJA) on the pre-contact and contact era archaeological record of the Chicago region, guest edited by Dr. Clare Tolmie, ISAS Northern Illinois Field Station Coordinator. 

This volume, the first of two special issues, serves as a reminder that, despite urban growth and development, the archaeological record of Chicago survives in many parts of the metropolitan area, from the end of the Ice Age to the end of the pre-contact period when Indigenous communities were first in direct contact with Europeans. These two special issues are derived from two symposia held at the 2020 Society for American Archaeology meeting in Chicago, Illinois (organized by current and former ISAS staff Paula Porubcan Branstner, Clare Tolmie, and Paula Bryant). The ideas and information in the volumes will be of value to many different stakeholder communities in the region.

The first volume includes overviews of the dynamic landscape, environment, cultural materials and cultural history by ISAS staff and affiliates Clare Tolmie, John Lambert, Tom Emerson, Kjersti Emerson, Paula Bryant, and Tom Loebel, among others. A second volume (also edited by Clare Tolmie) focuses on the post-contact period and is, to our knowledge, the first of its kind, with papers that examine the material culture of underrepresented communities, Civil War archaeological sites, and industrial archaeology.