Abstract
Excavations at the Joe Louis site (11CK284) in northeastern Illinois provide insight into village life along the Little Calumet River between the mid-fourteenth and late fifteenth centuries AD. In addition to evidence for their horticultural and other subsistence activities, the assemblage shows that site occupants were making stone tools and pottery, processing hides, making clothing, and possibly producing bird-wing fans. Structured deposits of bone and antler hoes, mussel shell, and specific plant and animal remains document the relational entanglements of the site's occupants, both human and otherwise. Given the geographically central location of the site at the margins of two major cultural areas (Oneota and Fort Ancient), as well as the overlapping boundaries with Langford and Huber peoples, Joe Louis villagers may have been actively negotiating social networks and identities through their material products as well as ritual gatherings. These negotiations may have enabled and encouraged coalescent occupations (Langford and Fisher, Fisher and Huber) at other sites in the region.
