Dig that link with the past?
NAL's summer archaeologlcal team dig and sift for artifacts at the "Pohl" site near Butterfield road. They include (Left to Right) Tom Dickens, Nancy and Alan Randlov and Ellen Fowler (seated) (Photo by Tony Frelo, NAL)
A proposal that a yard-by-yard survey be made of the NAL site to discover pre-historic sites was made by Prof. Stuart Struever, a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University. In a lecture at the Curia, Prof. Struever said that no area of the type such as NAL's 6,800-acres in northeastern Illinois ever had been properly surveyed by anthropologists and archaeologists. Much could be learned about buffalo hunting camps, agricultural base camps and transitory Indian tribes that once were apparently present in this region. Prof. Struever believes.
Dr. Struever proposed that, a walking survey be made of the site after development of a tightly-knit grid system so that when a historical item is found it can be known where it was picked up. He urged NAL employees and others who find artifacts on the site to note precisely where they were located so that their discovery can be correlated with other data.
Dr. Struever told the audience that there has been relatively little, if any, systematic exploration of the Fox River Valley by scholars, although it promises to be an interesting sector because of its proximity to high points in land, water and fertile ground. Time is fleeting for archaeological "digs" in this area as suburbia expands and other massive construction proceeds, Prof. Struever said. What has already been dug up, he said, is a "lost area." It would take two graduate students about three months to make the walking survey, he estimated.