Riverton Site facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Riverton Site
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Fields at the site
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 Location in Illinois
Location in the United States
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| Location | Northern side of 1150th Avenue immediately west of the Wabash River, northeast of Palestine |
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| Nearest city | Palestine, Illinois |
| NRHP reference No. | 78001141 |
| Added to NRHP | December 18, 1978 |
The Riverton Site is a very old and important place where people lived a long, long time ago. It's an archaeological site, which means it's a spot where scientists study things left behind by ancient people. This site is found right next to the Wabash River in Illinois, near a town called Palestine.
This special place helps us learn about a group of ancient people known as the Riverton culture. They lived here during a time called the Late Archaic period. This was thousands of years ago, before people started farming in big ways or building large cities. The Riverton Site is so important that it's called the "type site" for the Riverton culture. This means it's the main place where we first learned about them!
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Discovering the Riverton Culture
The Riverton culture was a group of people who lived in the central part of the Wabash River Valley. As of 1978, scientists only knew about three places where these people lived, and the Riverton Site was one of them.
These ancient people had special ways of making their tools. By studying the tools and other things they left behind, we can understand how they lived their daily lives.
What Scientists Found at the Site
When archaeologists dug at the Riverton Site, they found two main areas. One area seemed to be a "factory" or a place where tools were made. Here, they found many pits and a lot of broken or discarded tools. It was like a workshop from thousands of years ago!
The other area was where people lived. Scientists found parts of homes, including clay floors, which gives us clues about how their houses were built.
How the Site Was Found
People first noticed the Riverton Site in the 1950s. Then, in 1961, a scientist named Dr. Frank Winters from the Illinois State Museum started carefully digging and studying the site. These digs helped us learn so much about the Riverton culture.
A Special Place in History
Because the Riverton Site is so important for understanding ancient history, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1978. This is a list of places in the United States that are very important to our country's history and should be protected.
The Riverton Site is one of only three archaeological sites in Crawford County, Illinois, that are on this special list. The other two sites, called the Swan Island Site and the Stoner Site, were also places where the Riverton culture lived.
