ABSTRACT
Modoc Rock Shelter in Randolph County, Illinois, (Figures 13.1 and 13.2) was first excavated in 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956 by the Illinois State Museum and the Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago. These early studies documented 28 feet (8.5 m) of stratified cultural deposits chronicling the past 10 millennia with heaviest occupations occuring during the Archaic Period (10,000-3000 Bp) (Fowler 1959; Fowler and Winters 1956). The site offers one of the best known opportunities in the central Mississippi Valley for examining factors important to Archaic cultural evolution, including the sensitive interplay between human adaptations and changing Holocene environments.
