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This article summarizes what is currently known about the "pre-Allerton" history of Allerton Park using archaeological and historical data and explores the park's potential for future research. The park and surrounding area has a long and rich human history that is overshadowed by the "Allerton Period" mansion, gardens, and sculptures commissioned by Robert Allerton in the early twentieth century. Precontact native groups used the area for thousands of years, largely for hunting and gathering; they also constructed mounds along the Sangamon River within the current park boundaries. However, few systematic archaeological investigations of the park's prehistory have been conducted. Historic records indicate later indigenous groups such as the Illinois, Potawatomi, and Kickapoo also occupied the region; these records also provide detailed information regarding the early nineteenth century Euroamerican settlement of the region. Unfortunately, information derived from historic records about contact era indigenous groups and initial Euroamerican settlement of the area tells little about the daily lives and practices of these groups, and it is these aspects of the historic past that archaeology can reveal. While there are a number of historic period archaeological sites within the park that are associated with Euroamerican settlers, including two well-documented pioneer cemeteries, very little work has been conducted on these sites. Given the relatively undisturbed nature of the Allerton Park landscape, which has been preserved from the impacts of modern mechanized agricultural, the park represents a unique source of archaeological information in this little-understood area along the Sangamon River in east-central Illinois. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses recent archaeological investigations at the Samuel's Mounds site, a pre-Columbian mound site located within the boundaries of Robert Allerton Park in Piatt County, Illinois. This work was part of a collaborative effort between the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Allerton Park, and Parkland College to investigate the archaeological resources within the park. Pedestrian survey, geophysical survey, test excavations, and the restoration of one of the looted mounds were conducted at the site in 2017 and 2018, and these investigations provided information on the chronology, mound construction techniques, and activities that took place at the site. This work has shed light on the Late Woodland period in the upper Sangamon Valley and provided foundational archaeological information that will be useful to Allerton Park visitors, managers, the general public, and archaeologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]