Archaeology: Discovery of Native Artifacts
Wapello Land & Water Reserve stands out as one of the premier late prehistoric sites in the upper Midwest.
This site is one of the clearest examples of contact between the indigenous Late Woodland cultures of the upper Midwest and the more elaborate Mississippian Culture of the greater Southeast.
This parcel was a substantial Mississippian “temple town” with a pyramidal platform mound, two conical mounds, and a village area surrounding the plaza.
The first known archaeological test excavations of the John Chapman Site occurred in 1926 and 1932 under the direction of Robert McCormick Adams from the University of Chicago.
James Springer, Northern Illinois University, conducted surface collections at the Chapman site in 1981. In 1999 and 2000, Phil Millhouse, University of Illinois, initiated small test excavations at this site, returning in 2003 to conduct more extensive excavations within the north portion of the ridgeline of current reserve.
These recent investigations have revealed the presence of a series of clustered residential dwellings, possible plaza and a platform mound with artifacts representing a multi-ethnic population. The artifacts show the population was in a transition between Woodland and Mississippian cultural.
Artifacts found include thousands of exotic shell beads of marine origin, along with non-local materials such as mica and Lake Superior coppers. Also found were celt bits, non-local chert flake tools, including projectile points and endscrapers, southern Mississippian-style and local Woodland ceramics, sandstone abraders, ground hematite palettes and cubes of local Galena stone.