The Center for American Archeology, or CAA, is an independent non-profit

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

research and education institution located in

Kampsville Kampsville is a village in Calhoun County, Illinois, United States, located on the west bank of the Illinois River. The population was 310 at the 2022 census. Name Kampsville was originally known as ''Beeman's Landing'', after James L. Beeman, a ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, near the

Illinois River The Illinois River ( mia, Inoka Siipiiwi) is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River and is approximately long. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, it has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins at the confluence of the D ...

. It is dedicated to the exploration of the culture of

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

Native Americans and, to a lesser extent, the European settlers who supplanted them. Founded on what is often referred to as the "

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

," the region surrounding the confluence of the

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and the

rivers, the Center for American Archeology specializes in

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

cultures of the area. Due to successive settlement along the rivers, the area is particularly rich in

Woodland Period In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 Common Era, BCE to European con ...

artifacts, especially those of the Middle Woodland Hopewell culture, and later

Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...

. The Center has been associated with years of excavation at the Koster Site in Greene County, Illinois. Researchers have uncovered evidence of more than 7,000 years of human habitation, back to the Early

Archaic Archaic is a period of time preceding a designated classical period, or something from an older period of time that is also not found or used currently: *List of archaeological periods **Archaic Sumerian language, spoken between 31st - 26th cent ...

period (8000 BC to 1000 BC). The center is located about 90 minutes north of St. Louis and the Cahokia Mounds near Collinsville, Illinois. It uses the

Kamp Store The Kamp Store is a historic general store building located at the northeast corner of Oak and Broadway in Kampsville, Illinois, United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) ...

as the site of the CAA's Visitor’s Center and

Museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

. The early 1900s

mercantile Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exchan ...

building is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Bibliography

*''Koster: Americans in Search of Their Prehistoric Past'' by Stuart Struever and Felicia Antonelli Holton

References

External links

Center for American Archaeology
Archaeological museums in Illinois Archaeological research institutes Archaeological sites in Illinois Mound builders (people) Museums in Calhoun County, Illinois Non-profit organizations based in Illinois Pre-Columbian studies Pre-statehood history of Illinois Research institutes in Illinois {{US-org-stub pt:Arqueologia das Américas fi:Intiaanien historia