Shire Site facts for kids

The Shire site is an exciting archeological place in Logan County, Illinois. It's where scientists study how people lived a long time ago. This special area is of unknown size because it's on private land. But the small part that was dug up showed two houses, some underground rooms, and many cool things like pottery. Experts think people lived here around the year 1000 AD.

The Shire site is close to a lake that formed a very long time ago, during what we call the Holocene epoch (which is our current time period). Big trees used for wood grow around the lake. The lake has a unique sloped area near its edges. This slope makes it hard for archeologists to use their usual methods, as the ground is different from other places in the Sangamon River system.

What Makes the Shire Site Special?

A lot of broken ceramic pieces were found at the Shire site. This is super important because it's one of only two sites out of hundreds in the Sangamon River system that has so much pottery! The pottery found here shows that people used methods from the Late Woodland period to make these pots.

What's even more interesting is that they tried to mix two different pottery-making styles: Late Woodland and Mississippian culture. Finding different kinds of pottery suggests that the people living at the Shire site might not have been from the Sangamon River area originally. Even though the pottery was found inside houses, meaning it was used every day, the way it was made is amazing. The high quality of the ceramics tells us that someone with lots of training and experience made them. It's also likely that these beautiful pots were brought from an area further south.

What Animals Tell Us About the Site

Scientists also found many animal remains at the Shire site. There were lots of deer, fish, and other animal bones. This shows that people lived here when the lake was full and nature was thriving.

Even though the animals found could be hunted all year, research suggests that the site might have only been used during the summer. How do they know? They didn't find any deer skulls with antlers that had been shed in winter. This means people probably didn't stay there during the colder months.

What We Learned from the Shire Site

The Shire site was probably a place where people traded goods. It was likely a meeting spot for the Mississippian people and the Late Woodland people. This idea comes from the site's special location and what we learned from studying the pottery.

Because of how the houses were built, it seems like people lived there for a long time, not just for short visits. The different kinds of artifacts found show that the Mississippians and Late Woodland people regularly traded things with each other. It was an important place for connecting different groups of people long ago.