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The UIUC Western Kentucky Project (hereinafter “WKY Project”) began in 1982 with the generous support of the Kentucky Heritage Council.  Fieldwork continued throughout the 1980s and was centered mostly in Ballard, Carlisle, Hickman, and Fulton counties along the Mississippi River.  This program of research on the prehistory of Western Kentucky yielded a wealth of fresh understanding, the interpretive value of which, I believe, has yet to be fully realized. The WKY Project also provided the basis for several books, many articles, four UIUC PhD dissertations, as well as several MA theses and Undergraduate Senior Honors theses.

Research Reports

When I began the WKY Project, I was impressed by Chuck Bareis’s policy for the FAI-270 Project in the American Bottom, which required that descriptive research reports be written and distributed as working documents soon after the completion of fieldwork.  I followed his lead in Kentucky and wrote into the WKY Project grant proposals sufficient funds to print 40-50 copies of each field report, which were distributed to interested archaeologists, libraries, and research organizations in the region.  These working documents were intended to make basic descriptive information about our research accessible to other scholars in a timely fashion after completion of the fieldwork.

Number

  1. Mississippian Towns of the Western Kentucky Border: The Adams, Wickliffe, and Sassafras Ridge Sites, edited by R. Barry Lewis (1984).  A revised and slightly enlarged version of this report was published in 1986 by the Kentucky Heritage Council.
  2. The Adams Site: Spatial Analysis Preliminary Report, by Charles B. Stout (1985).
  3. The Turk Site: A Mississippian Town of the Western Kentucky Border, edited by Richard Edging (1985).
  4. Archaeological Investigations in Carlisle, Hickman, and Fulton Counties, Kentucky: Site Survey and Excavations, by Tom Sussenbach and R. Barry Lewis (1987).
  5. Jonathan Creek Revisited: The House Basin Structures and Their Ceramics, by Lynne Mackin Wolforth (1987).
  6. Surface Distribution Patterns at the Adams Site, A Mississippian Town in Fulton County, Kentucky, by Charles B. Stout (1987).
  7. Second-Order Communities in Western Kentucky: Site Survey and Excavations at Late Woodland and Mississippi Period Sites, by Paul P. Kreisa (1988).
  8. Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Big Bottoms of Fulton County, Kentucky, by Paul P. Kreisa (1989).
  9. Mississippian Sites of the Lower Ohio River Valley in Kentucky, by Paul P. Kreisa (1991).

WKY Project Bibliography

The following is an incomplete list of project publications other than the WKY Project Reports listed above. If you published articles based on the WKY Project data, please send the bibliographical information to me at blewis@illinois.edu and I will add it to this list.

Allen, Mark W. (1976) Preliminary Report on Human Skeletal Remains from the Adams Site (15Fu4). In Late Prehistoric Research in Kentucky, edited by David Pollack, Charles Hockensmith, and Tom Sanders, pp. 181-185.  Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Burks, Jarrod (1995) An Interregional Comparison of the Surface Patterning of Two Western Kentucky Mississippian Sites. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 20:3-39.

Edging, Richard, editor (1990) The Turk Site: A Mississippi Period Town in Western Kentucky.  Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Kreisa, Paul P. (1987) Late Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Big Bottoms, Fulton County, Kentucky.  In Current Archaeological Research in Kentucky: Volume One, edited by David Pollack, pp. 78-99. Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Kreisa, Paul P. (1990) Organizational Aspects of Mississippian Settlement Systems in Western Kentucky.  PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illnois, Urbana, IL.

Kreisa, Paul P. (1998) Pottery, Radiocarbon Dates, and Mississippian-Period Chronology Building in Western Kentucky. In Changing Perspectives on the Archaeology of the Central Mississippi Valley, edited by M. J. O’Brien and R. C. Dunnell, pp. 59-79. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Kreisa, Paul P. and Charles Stout (1991) Late Woodland Adaptations in the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers Confluence Region. In Late Woodland Stability, Transformation, and Variation in the Greater Southeastern United States, edited by M. Nassaney and C. R. Cobb, pp. 121-147.  Plenum, New York.

Kreisa, Paul P. and Charles Stout (1991) Trends and Trajectory in Western Kentucky Woodland Period Settlement Patterning.  In The Human Landscape in Kentucky’s Past: Site Structure and Settlement Patterns, edited by Charles Stout and C. K. Hensley, pp. 98-105. Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Kruger, Robert P. (1985) The Turk Site Faunal Assemblage: A Study of Intrasite and Intersite Variation in Western Kentucky Mississippian Sites. Unpublished Senior Honors Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Univeristy of Illinois, Urbana.

Lewis, R. Barry (1990) Mississippi Period.  In The Archaeology of Kentucky: Past Accomplishments and Future Directions, edited by David Pollack, pp. 375-466.Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Lewis, R. Barry (1984) The Adams Site Ceramic Assemblage in Regional Perspective.  In Late Prehistoric Research in Kentucky, edited by David Pollack, Charles Hockensmith, and Tom Sanders, pp. 187-204.  Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Lewis, R. Barry (1990) The Late Prehistory of the Ohio-Mississippi Rivers Confluence Region, Kentucky and Missouri.  In Towns and Temples along the Mississippi River, edited by David Dye and Cheryl A. Cox, pp. 38-58.  University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Lewis, R. Barry (1991) The Early Mississippi Period in the Confluence Region and Its Northern Relationships.  In Cahokia and the Hinterlands, edited by Thomas E. Emerson and R. Barry Lewis, pp. 274-294. The University of Illinois Press, Urbana.

Lewis, R. Barry (1996) The Western Kentucky Border and the Cairo Lowland.  In Prehistory of the Central Mississippi Valley, edited by Charles McNutt, pp. 47-75.  University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Lewis, R. Barry (1996) Introduction.  In Archaeology of Kentucky, edited by R. Barry Lewis, pp. 1-20.  University Press of Kentucky, Lexington.

Lewis, R. Barry (1996) Mississippian Farmers.  In Archaeology of Kentucky, edited by R. Barry Lewis, pp. 127-159.  University Press of Kentucky, Lexington.

Lewis, R. Barry (1996) The Future of Kentucky’s Past.  In Archaeology of Kentucky, edited by R. Barry Lewis, pp. 213-226.  University Press of Kentucky, Lexington.  (with David Pollack)

Lewis, R. Barry, and Charles Stout (1995) Constantine Rafinesque and the Canton Site, A Mississippian Town in Trigg County, Kentucky.  Southeastern Archaeology 14:83-90.

Lewis, R. Barry, and Charles Stout (1998) Mississippian Towns in Kentucky. In Mississippian Towns and Sacred Spaces: Searching for An Architectural Grammar, edited by R. Barry Lewis and Charles Stout, pp. 151-178.  University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Lewis, R. Barry, and Charles Stout (1998) The Town as Metaphor. In Mississippian Towns and Sacred Spaces: Searching for An Architectural Grammar, edited by R. Barry Lewis and Charles Stout, pp. 227-241.  University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Lewis, R. Barry, Charles Stout, and Cameron Wesson (1998) The Design of Mississippian Towns.  In Mississippian Towns and Sacred Spaces: Searching for An Architectural Grammar, edited by R. Barry Lewis and Charles Stout, pp. 1-21.  University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Stout, Charles B. (1984) Mississippian Sites in Western Kentucky: Variations on a Central Mississippian Theme?  In Late Prehistoric Research in Kentucky, edited by David Pollack, Charles Hockensmith, and Tom Sanders, pp. 167-179.  Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Stout, Charles B. (1989) The Spatial Patterning of the Adams Site: A Mississippian Town in Western Kentucky. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illnois, Urbana, IL.

Stout, Charles B. (1991) Adams Meets St. Francis: Lower Mississippi Valley Site Classification Critiqued.  In The Human Landscape in Kentucky’s Past: Site Structure and Settlement Patterns, edited by Charles Stout and C. K. Hensley, pp. 128-138. Kentucky Heritage Council, Frankfort, KY.

Sussenbach, Tom (1993) Agricultural Intensification and Mississippian Developments in the Confluence Region of the Mississippi River Valley. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illnois, Urbana, IL.