Koster-N Horizon 8A-10B Macro Identified File

Data includes Faunal Analysis at Site. Site Description: The Koster site is a deeply stratified site located in the lower Illinois River valley containing cultural deposits that span most of the Holocene. This site has provided significant information about the Archaic period in the Midwest as well as human-environment interactions at this time. Due to excellent preservation Koster gives us a complex record of the technologies and food sources of its inhabitants over time. The Koster site is located in Section 21, T 9 N, R 13 W Greene County adjacent to eastern bluffline of the lower Illinois Valley. The Site was test excavated in the summer of 1969, under the direction of Stuart Struever of Northwestern University. Originally it was defined on the basis of debris from a Late Woodland occupation, but the 1969 tests made it clear that older occupations stratified beneath the Late Woodland occupation were significant. Major excavations were undertaken at the site between 1969 and 1979 under the direction of Struever and James A. Brown, and a large number of student archaeologists received training at Koster through field schools of Northwestern University. During this time Koster also was a significant attraction for public education about archaeology through the Foundation for Illinois Archaeology (now the Center for American Archaeology) based in Kampsville, IL. The faunal database available here spans the Middle Archaic from ca. 8300-6850 BP or Horizons 10B-8B. This appears to have been a crucial period for subsistence and settlement change in the Midwest.