Matthew A. Fort

Engineer Research and Development Center - U.S. Army | ERDC US Army · Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory

Post-AD 1000 was a time of tremendous change in the Upper Illinois River valley. The Terminal Late Woodland groups in the region were bordered on the south by emergent Mississippian petty chiefdoms of the Central Illinois River valley, on the north by Oneota societies, and on the east by Fort Ancient groups. Coinciding with this cultural mix was th...

At its peak, the urban complex of Greater Cahokia likely had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people, with a social, political, and religious influence that covered the midcontinent. New excavations at Cahokia’s East St. Louis Precinct, paired with existing isotopic studies and climatic data afford us previously unavailable insights into f...

The history of maize ( Zea mays L .) in the eastern Woodlands remains an important study topic. As currently understood, these histories appear to vary regionally and include scenarios positing an early introduction and an increase in use over hundreds of, if not a thousand, years. In this article, we address the history of maize in the American Bo...

In 1940, Gretchen Cutter and a WPA crew conducted excavations in the Mound Wi°5 at the Fisher site in Will County, Illinois. We examined those materials as part of our reanalysis of the Fisher site excavations by George Langford and the University of Chicago. The mound’s material culture correlates with the Des Plaines phase but contains strong con...

In 1940, Gretchen Cutter and a WPA crew conducted excavations in the Mound Wio5 at the Fisher site in Will County, Illinois. We examined those materials as part of our reanalysis of the Fisher site excavations by George Langford and the University of Chicago. The mound’s material culture correlates with the Des Plaines phase but contains strong con...

The Radiocarbon Reservoir Effect (RRE) involves the uptake of older carbon into aquatic and terrestrial foodwebs. Its magnitude varies greatly among rivers and lakes. It can increase radiocarbon ages on consumers of aquatic foods by decades to centuries. Archaeological RRE studies in Northern Eurasia have focused on bone collagen and pottery food r...