The IAS Public Service Committee is seeking nominations for the following awards.

- The Illinois Archaeology Public Service Award

This award recognizes important contributions to Illinois archaeology by public figures, private citizens, organizations and programs for their outstanding efforts to promote, protect and preserve cultural resources.

- Charles J. Bareis Distinguished Service Award

This award honors those individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to Illinois archaeology and/or the Illinois Archaeological Survey.

- The Leonard W. Blake Distinguished Amateur Award

The Blake award is named in honor of its first recipient. It recognizes avocational archaeologists who have made significant contributions to Illinois archaeology and who have supported the goals and methodologies of professional archaeology.

- The Illinois Archaeology Career Achievement Award

This award honors professional archaeologists for outstanding career accomplishments and contributions to our understanding of Illinois prehistory and history.

- The IAS Memorial Service Award

This award honors the achievements of Illinois archaeologists whose careers have been cut short by fatal illness or accident.

A list of past recipients is available on the IAS Website: https://ilarchsurv.org/awards

Please send nominations (or questions) to Jamie Kelly at jkelly@fieldmuseum.org. The closing date for nominations is July 22nd. Awards will be presented at our Annual Meeting in September.

We are seeking nominations from the IAS membership for 6 positions: Treasurer, Secretary, President-Elect and 3 Executive Board Members:

* Treasurer, Secretary, and President-Elect: terms 2020–2021.

* 3 Board Members: terms 2020–2022.

Please forward nominations by July 15th, 2019, to chair of our nominations committee, Ryan Campbell, at rcampb@siu.edu 

A historic freed community is gaining more attention as archaeologists and researchers from Southern Illinois University Carbondale prepare to unearth and share the stories of bravery from those working in the Underground Railroad.

Two anthropology juniors, Megan Carson of Percy, Illinois, and Michaela Hoots of Galatia, Illinois, are gearing up to uncover more of the hidden history of Miller Grove and will share their findings in a unique way. Read more in the link below:

https://blog.news.siu.edu/20190509-two-students-are-uncovering-the-hidden-secrets-of-an-old-underground-railroad-stop/

For the 15th year, the IAS is soliciting papers for the Jeanette E. Stephens Student Paper Awards. The competition is open to both undergraduate and graduate students with research concerning Illinois Archaeology. Papers are due by June 30, 2019. Click on the link for details.

https://ilarchsurv.org/stephensaward

Prehistory on the Prairie III: Excavations at the Middle Grant Creek Site

Join us on the prairie again this year as we explore the cusp of prehistory at the Middle Grant Creek site! Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie’s mission is the restoration and preservation of indigenous prairieland – a now rare type of ecosystem – that nearly disappeared after 200 years of Euro-American land use in the area. As part of that effort, ongoing archaeological research is being done to identify both prehistoric and historic sites, cultures, and land-use patterns. One such site, identified in 2002, is the Middle Grant Creek Site. The site is an Oneota Culture (ca. A.D. 1150-1700) resource extraction and utilization site, dating to the Huber Phase (ca. A.D. 1600). Phase II testing in 2006 determined that it was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and, since 2016, Professor Mark Schurr and Dr. Madeleine McLeester of the University of Notre Dame have been working on excavations to further investigate the site. We invite you to come out to the Midewin and work side-by-side with these professionals as they excavate the site’s deep storage pits, which, so far, have yielded unique pottery, animal bones, a shell from Florida, projectile points, painted mussel shells, and more! You will get the chance to excavate, screen, and record the site, and help us find evidence of how Huber people lived and interacted with their environment. For more information: 

http://www.passportintime.com/prehistory-on-the-prairie-iii-2019.html?fbclid=IwAR1EZ7KHN9aXO-t0Qw5YCzzDsn6UeXFfkcQwXzvYx6gmVJTMogw8zMgIFU8

Let us all congratulate Lynne Goldstein on being this year's SAA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in recognition of her extensive contributions to the field of archaeology.  

The Field Museum is offering a number of paid internship opportunities for students this year. These may be found on The Field Museum's website (http://www.fieldmuseum.org/about/careers see pages 2 and 3) and include:

Intern, Anthropology Alliance, Collections
Intern, Anthropology Alliance, Summer Fieldwork
Interns, Boone Scholars for East Asian Studies
Intern, Mullins Martin-North American Anthropology
Interns, North American Biological Anthropology
Interns, Regenstein Pacific Collections

The annual conference of the Illinois Archaeological Survey is scheduled to convene on September 6 and 7, 2019 at the Interpretive Center of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, https://cahokiamounds.org/. The business meeting and conference presentations will be held on Saturday, Sept. 7, and an opening reception on Friday evening, Sept. 6. Plan on a fun weekend in Cahokia!

Floyd Mansberger of Fever River Research received the IAS Charles Bareis Distinguished Service Award in 2018. His archaeological and historical investigations of the Springfield Race Riots of 1908 are the subject of a January 2019 Smithsonian article.