Reaffirming Late Mississippian Identity in the Central Illinois River Valley: A Ceramic Analysis of Three La Moine River Tradition Sites

Abstract The Mississippian occupation of the central Illinois River valley (CIRV) represents nearly one-half millennium of negotiating cultural contact between in situ and outside groups. During the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Bold Counselor Oneota populations immigrated to the CIRV, blending Upper Mississippian Oneota and Middle Mississippian lifeways. Thirty kilometers to the south, a string of Mississippian villages and complexes exists that is seemingly void of any Oneota influence. Though they are part of what is known as the “La Moine River Tradition,” these villages are poorly understood by archaeologists in terms of quantifiable data. This study analyzes domestic and mortuary context ceramics from three Late Mississippian villages in the lower half of the CIRV. The results suggest that the late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century La Moine River area towns represent CIRV Mississippians continuing to navigate a combination of American Bottom influences with ancestral traditions, while maintaining the status quo against an influx of Bold Counselor Oneota immigrants.