Hotel Plaza site facts for kids

The Hotel Plaza site (Ls-36) is an important historical place near Starved Rock State Park in Illinois. It sits on the Illinois River, right across from another famous spot called the Grand Village of the Illinois.

This site is like a time capsule, showing us how people lived during many different periods. These include very old "prehistoric" times (before written history), "protohistoric" times (when Native Americans first met Europeans), and early "historic" times (when Europeans settled). The main part of the site is from the early historic period, connected to the French Fort St. Louis.

French explorers like Joliet and Marquette visited the Grand Village of Kaskaskia between 1673 and 1680. The Kaskaskia were a group of the Illiniwek Confederacy. Other Illiniwek groups, such as the Peoria, also lived nearby. Later, tribes like the Miami and Shawnee were also present. In 1680, a war party from the Iroquois tribe burned the village, and it was left empty.

After the village was abandoned, the French started building Fort St. Louis in 1682. They wanted to show their Native American allies that they would protect them. Soon, the Illinois and other tribes gathered near the fort, hoping to be safe. The Hotel Plaza site is very close to where this old fort once stood.

Digging Up the Past

How Archaeologists Found Things

In 1948 and 1949, scientists began digging at the Hotel Plaza site. The Illinois State Museum and the University of Chicago led these digs. They divided the area into three main sections, called Grid A, B, and C, to help them organize their work.

Why This Site Matters

What We Learned from Hotel Plaza

The Hotel Plaza site shows us that people lived here for thousands of years. But the most important discoveries are from the Swanson complex and LaSalle component. These finds are from the late prehistoric and early historic periods. This means they tell us a lot about the Starved Rock area when Europeans first arrived.

Connecting Cultures

The LaSalle component at Hotel Plaza is from the same time as the Danner component at the Zimmerman site. Both show signs of a culture called Fort Ancient living in the area. Some archaeologists think that pottery found here, called Madisonville Focus pottery, might mean the Shawnee people were part of the Danner/LaSalle culture. However, experts still debate this idea.

Ancient Life at Hotel Plaza

The Swanson complex found at Hotel Plaza represents the Late Woodland culture. Some of these items are very old, possibly from as far back as A.D. 800. Some scientists think that the early Swanson culture might have developed from an even older culture called Middle Woodland Weaver Ware, which dates back to about 100 B.C.

Interestingly, at Hotel Plaza, Swanson pottery was found with European trade goods. This shows that the Swanson culture continued from prehistoric times into the early historic period. However, archaeologists still don't know which specific Native American tribe the Swanson culture represents.