G. Logan Miller, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4660, Normal, IL, 61790,
(glmill1@ilstu.edu, corresponding author)
Robert G. McCullough and B. Jacob Skousen, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois
at Urbana–Champaign, 23 E. Stadium Dr., Champaign, IL 61820
©2019 Illinois Archaeological Survey, Inc., Illinois Archaeology, vol. 31, pp.1–29
1
A Wall-Trench Structure from the
Langford Tradition Village of Noble-
Wieting (11ML24), McLean County, Illinois
G. Logan Miller, Robert G. McCullough, and B. Jacob Skousen
The Langford Tradition of northern Illinois is an important, yet understudied, Upper
Mississippian manifestation. Detailed reports of excavated examples of Langford wooden
architecture are exceedingly rare in comparison to other Mississippian groups, hindering
attempts to analyze many related aspects of Langford lifeways. In this paper, we provide a
detailed report of a wall-trench structure (Feature 9) from the Langford Tradition village
of Noble-Wieting in central Illinois. This structure provides an unparalleled view into
Langford Tradition domestic architecture, albeit from a multi-ethnic, frontier settlement
about 100 km south of other known Langford villages. Here we present an overview of
this wall-trench structure using a multi-instrument geophysical survey, excavations, AMS
radiocarbon dates, and preliminary artifact analysis. Based on these findings, Feature 9
provides insight into unique aspects of Langford Tradition architecture at this fourteenth-
century, multi-ethnic, frontier village.
The analysis of wooden architecture has become an increasingly important topic in
the archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands (see chapters in Redmond and Genheimer
2015; Lacquement 2007). However, there are still few detailed reports and analyses
of Langford Tradition wooden architecture. Here we report on recent excavations at
Noble-Wieting that provided an in-depth view of a Langford wall-trench structure.
The Noble-Wieting site (11ML24) is a 5.8-acre Langford Tradition village situated
on a terrace near the junction of the Kickapoo and Little Kickapoo creeks in central
Illinois (Figure 1). The site is often mentioned in discussions of the Upper Mississippian
Langford Tradition as a geographic outlier to villages that are otherwise located across
northern Illinois along the Des Plaines, Du Page, Fox, Rock, and upper Illinois rivers
(Bird 1997; Emerson 1999; Jeske 2000, 2003). Additionally, shell-tempered Mississippian
pottery occurs in such frequency in association with grit-tempered Langford vessels as