The Illinois State Archaeological Survey proudly announces the release of our latest publication, East St. Louis Precinct Mississippian Ceramics edited by Tamira K. Brennan, Michael Brent Lansdell, and Alleen Betzenhauser with contributions by Alleen Betzenhauser, Tamira K. Brennan, Sarah E. Harken, Michael Brent Lansdell, and Victoria E. Potter.

The investigations at East St. Louis conducted by Illinois State Archaeological Survey for the New Mississippi River Bridge project provided an unprecedented amount of information concerning Terminal Late Woodland habitation in the American Bottom. East St. Louis Precinct Terminal Late Woodland Features, edited by Alleen Betzenhauser, describes insights gained from this project.

ISAS archaeological projects coordinator Sarah Scattergood received the Outstanding New Support Staff Award at the 2019 Prairie Research Institute Celebration of Excellence. 

The Illinois State Archaeological Survey has reprinted two popular out-of-print publications and both are available for purchase on Amazon.

John Lambert and Alleen Betzenhauser describe how they used a 3D scanner to capture digital images of petroglyphs that were pecked and ground into limestone boulders during the Mississippian Period

Timothy R. Pauketat, a University of Illinois professor of Anthropology, is the new director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey.

A new book, “Revealing Greater Cahokia, North America’s First Native City,” offers the most complete picture yet of a decade of archaeological research on a little-known part of the larger city and its precincts in East St. Louis. 

A new documentary about the cities built by Native Americans features research by University of Illinois anthropologists at the ancient city of Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis. An episode of the documentary will be screened Oct. 10 at Spurlock Museum.

Staff from the Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) are looking to new technology to tie Cahokia’s grid to real-world coordinates. This will be the first time researchers and other state agencies will be able to integrate LiDAR with excavation data at Cahokia.

The Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) will participate in the Pygmalion Festival’s demo event happening Sept. 27 from 5:30-9:30 p.m. at the Krannert Art Museum on the University of Illinois campus.

Ancient Cahokia Future Visions Conference brings goal for Cahokia becoming a National Park to the forefront.

Exchange Avenue figurine survives to tell us about Cahokia

ISAS partners with organizations to collect data from the Mann site.

The Illinois Archaeological Survey recently published its 28th and 29th volume in honor of Dr. Thomas E. Emerson. Dr. Emerson’s career has spanned over 45 years in cultural resource management and during that time he has been a passionate advocate for publishing archaeological research.

While digging out the floors this week during the ongoing restoration of the Nancy Kimball House in Elgin, workers uncovered the 1846 house's original cistern. The discovery prompted Liz Marston of the Elgin Area Historical Society and Museum to contact the Illinois State Archaeological Survey's Northern Illinois Field Station in Elgin, which sent three archaeologists to have a look Thursday.

Archaeologists turned up remnants of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the fabled White City that drew millions of visitors to Chicago’s Jackson Park, as they scoured the site of the Obama Presidential Center and nearby parkland as part of the federal review of plans for the proposed complex.

Dr. Thomas E. Emerson, director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) and Illinois’ first State Archaeologist, announced he will be retiring at the end of 2018. Dr. Emerson’s career has spanned over 45 years in cultural resource management and he has been director of ISAS since 1994.

The Illinois State Archaeological Survey is partnering with Allerton Park staff to identify, restore, interpret and preserve mounds (probably ancient burial structures) at Robert Allerton Park.

In the early 1900s, archaeologist William Mills dug up a treasure-trove of carved stone pipes that had been buried almost 2,000 years earlier. Mills was the first to dig the Native American site, called Tremper Mound, in southern Ohio. And when he inspected the pipes, he made a reasonable—but untested—assumption. The pipes looked as if they had been carved from local stone, and so he said they were. That assumption, first published in 1916, has been repeated in scientific publications to this day. But according to a new analysis, Mills was wrong.

People living 700 to 900 years ago in Cahokia, a massive settlement near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, ritually used a caffeinated brew made from the leaves of a holly tree that grew hundreds of miles away, researchers report.

A team of medical experts and researchers will present new findings on the Spurlock Museum mummy at a symposium at the museum on Nov. 2. Sarah Wisseman, the director of the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey and the author of "The Virtual Mummy," led the effort and will introduce the event.