ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN Ste. GENEVIEVE 

 COUNTY, MISSOURI. 



By David I. Bushnell, Jr. 



Of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



HISTORICAL. 



Bordering on tho eastern shore of the Mississippi, and extending 

 from a point about opposite the mouth of the Missouri on the north, 

 to the Kaskaskia on the south, is a rich alluvial plain, often desig- 

 nated by the name '^American Bottom." This is bounded by a 

 line of bluffs which touches the river at the north and south. When 

 first visited by the French this area was claimed and occupied by 

 the Illinois Indians. At the north, some 20 miles below the mouth 

 of the Missouri, were the villages of the Cahokia and Tamaroa. 

 Later, during the year 1703,^ the Kaskaskia moved southward from 

 the Illinois River, and reared their wigwams near the mouth of the 

 stream now bearing their name. These settlements were often men- 

 tioned by the early writers, but no account is to be found of villages 

 on the opposite or right bank of the Mississippi between these 

 points. 



On the map of Pierre van der Aa (about 1720), two small streams 

 are shown entering the Mississippi from the west, a short distance 

 below the Missouri, and about equidistant between this river and the 

 Saline. The more northerly of these is probably intended to repre- 

 sent the Meramec. A dot at the mouth of this stream, on the north 

 side, bears the legend: '^ Village des Ilinois et des Caskoukia." Proba- 

 bly the Cahokia. On the eastern side of the Mississippi is indicated 

 the "Village des Tamaroa." On the d'Anville map of 1755, an 

 ''Ancien Village Cahokias" is placed on the right, or western shore 

 of the Mississippi about midway between the mouth of the ''R. de 

 Maremac" on the south, and that of the "Petite R. des Cahokias," 

 entering from the east, on the north. At the mouth of this small 

 stream is the legend: "Cahokias et Tamaroas le Fort et la Mission." 

 The position of the "Ancien Village Cahokias" corresponds with 



' Shea, John Gilmary, The Catholic Church in Colonial Days, New York, 1886, p. 544. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 46— No. 2042. 

 95278°— Proc.N.M.vol.46— 13 41 641 



