The Giant City Stone Fort Site is the site of a prehistoric stone

enclosure Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...

located within

Giant City State Park Giant City State Park is an Illinois state park on in Jackson and Union Counties, Illinois, United States. Illinois acquired more than in 1927, and dedicated the park as Giant City State Park. A lodge and visitor center welcome state park gu ...

in Jackson County,

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

United States 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 primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The Stone Fort dates to the

Late Woodland period In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeolog ...

and was constructed and used in the period from c. AD 600–900; it is one of ten such sites known in

Southern Illinois Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Mi ...

. All ten were constructed atop either

promontories A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the so ...

or hilltops; the Giant City site is in the former group, as it sits atop a sloped ridge. The purpose of these enclosures is unclear; while archaeologists originally theorized that they were military fortifications, the present archaeological consensus suggests that the sites were used as meeting places or ceremonial locations of some nature. The original stone wall of the fort was dismantled by European settlers in the region, who used the stone as a building material; the stone base is all that remains of the original wall. In 1934, the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

reconstructed the wall while improving the state park. The first professional archaeological investigations of the site were conducted in 1956 by archaeologists from

Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...

, while the first in-depth survey of the site took place in 2000–2001. The site is accessible to park visitors via a nature trail. The site was added to 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 ...

on August 9, 2002.

References

Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Geography of Jackson County, Illinois Woodland period National Register of Historic Places in Jackson County, Illinois {{JacksonCountyIL-geo-stub

See also

References