The Ware Mounds and Village Site ( 11U31), also known as the Running Lake Site, located west of

Ware Ware may refer to: People * Ware (surname) * William of Ware (), English Franciscan theologian Places Canada * Fort Ware, British Columbia United Kingdom * Ware, Devon *Ware, Hertfordshire * Ware, Kent United States * Ware, Elmore 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 ...

, is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...

comprising three

platform mound Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

s and a village site. The site was inhabited by the

Late Woodland 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 Mississippian cultures from c. 800 to c. 1300. The village may be the only Mississippian village known to have existed in the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

valley 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 ...

. As the village was located near two major sources of

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...

, which Mississippian cultures used to make agricultural tools, it was likely a trading center for the mineral.Maruszak, Kathleen. ''National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form: Ware Mounds and Village Site''.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

, 1976-11. The first of the site's three mounds is in diameter. The graves of indigenous peoples have been found in this mound, which was later used as a cemetery by European settlers. The second mound is in diameter, while the third is long and wide. A fourth mound, which was smaller than the other three, was originally located at the site but was demolished by the construction of

Illinois Route 3 Illinois Route 3 (IL 3) is a major north–south arterial state highway in southwestern Illinois. It has its southern terminus at Cairo Junction (about north of Cairo) at the intersection of U.S. Route 51 (US 51) and Illinois Ro ...

. 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 October 18, 1977.

Stone statue

A Mississippian culture stone statue made of

fluorite Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon. The Mohs sca ...

was found buried in Mound 1 by Thomas Perrine in 1873 and nicknamed "Anna". The specimen shows many similarities to other examples found at

Angel Mounds Angel Mounds State Historic Site ( 12 VG 1), an expression of the Mississippian culture, is an archaeological site managed by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites that includes more than of land about southeast of present-day Evansville ...

near

Evansville, Indiana Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

and Obion Mounds near Paris, Tennessee. It is now part of the collection of the Field Museum of Natural History in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

References

Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Geography of Union County, Illinois Middle Mississippian culture Mounds in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Union County, Illinois {{UnionCountyIL-NRHP-stub

Stone statue

See also

References