Noble-Wieting

A key cultural site—a place where precontact Indigenous Illinoisians of multiple cultural traditions lived during a short period of great historic change—sits in the middle of Illinois, south of modern-day Bloomington. The Noble-Wieting cultural site, in McLean County, is one of the largest Native American settlements of its kind in east-central Illinois, home at one time to perhaps 100 or more men, women, and children. 

Archaeological excavations at Noble-Wieting in the 1960s and 70s uncovered co-existing pottery-making traditions, interpreted as evidence that multiple cultural groups lived together at the edge of the vast interior Illinois prairie. A geophysical survey of the site by ISAS in 2016 was the beginning of a collaborative effort to save the site from possible destruction. A team of researchers from ISAS, Parkland College, and Illinois State University is conducting excavations in consultation with Tribal Nations whose ancestors lived in this part of what is now the state of Illinois. As a collaborative effort, Noble-Wieting promises to help these Nations link their pasts with the Illinois landscape, and to help all of us better understand how multiple cultural groups created new identities and communities that persisted through time.