Health and cultural interaction in the Illinois Country: A bioarchaeological analysis of three historic Native American populations

Great strides have been made in documenting the complexities of interaction between indigenous people and the expanding European economic and political interests in the Illinois Country. This bioarchaeological study focuses on the degree to which skeletal evidence for disease, nutritional status, and trauma correlates with historical evidence of health and behavior. It is hypothesized that differences in the nature and intensity of interaction between Native Americans and Europeans resulted in measurable differences in skeletal markers of health and behavior of Native American populations.;Archaeological and skeletal data are used to examine the biological impact of European contact and colonization on three Native American tribes---the Kaskaskia in northern Illinois (A. D. 1640-1700), the Michigamea in southwestern Illinois (A. D. 1753-1765), and the Sauk in northwestern Illinois (A. D. 1780-1820). These sites and populations represent three distinct periods, each characterized by unique conditions and events that impacted the lives and lifestyles of Native American inhabitants.;Analysis of these data revealed that patterns of population health, trauma, and activity-related morphology are consistent with ethnohistoric descriptions and archaeological evidence of historical events and conditions. Unanticipated differences in health and lifestyle were identified between sites, and between males and females within sites. While many of these are attributable to temporally-related differences in access to European resources, exposure to disease, and proximity to European settlements, some differences are better explained by the lifestyle choices of the Native American populations in question.;When sexes are compared between sites, males tend to show less variation (e.g., in caries rates, LEH frequency, and the nature of pathologies and trauma) than females, indicating that while the lifestyle of males was fairly similar, the lifestyle of women varied between populations in response to their changing roles in their individual communities. This study emphasizes the important contributions that bioarchaeological research provides to a more complete understanding of the historical consequences of cultural contact between Europeans and Native American communities.