This study offers a detailed look at the Native cultures of northeastern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin between A.D. 1000 and 1400, who are generally known as the Oneota. The beginning of the eleventh century marks the start of monumental changes in the region. The widespread adoption of maize agriculture brought about an aggregation of people into larger villages along with profound changes in lifestyle and their material culture. Increased violence accompanied these changes, and climate changes brought about by the Little Ice Age put new pressures on the newly agrarian people.
These changes were not limited to the Oneota, but are seen up and down the Mississippi River Valley, particularly emanating from the great center of Cahokia near St. Louis. People shifted from small-scale gardening and hunting and gathering to large-scale farming. But unlike further south, the old egalitarian system in the Upper Mississippi Valley did not give way to a centralized organization of cities ruled by elites.
Archaeologist Richard Edwards of the Commonwealth Heritage Group draws on the most up-to-date archaeological research to give a clear picture of the changes that take place over some 400 years. The planting, tending, and harvesting of maize, squash, beans, and goosefoot took tremendous amounts of labor, and women likely did much of this work. Men’s labor was probably centered on hunting, defense, and retaliatory raids. Isotope analysis suggests that agriculture accounted for forty percent or more of protein intake and seventy-five percent of the calories. Edwards thus demonstrates that the Oneota were far more agricultural than previously thought.
Indigenous Life around the Great Lakes is an important addition to the archaeology of this region. It gives new insights into a people who have been misunderstood for many decades. It provides a foundation for all kinds of new research seeking answers to the many still unanswered questions about this important region and its people.
