Prairie Pages: The First Peoples of Illinois

              Prairie Pages
Vol. 2 # 3 Education Services Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
The First Peoples of Illinois
Paleo-Indians
Around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, shortly after the last
glacier retreated from Illinois, peoples from Asia traveled
through Siberia to present-day Alaska. They crossed into North
America on a land bridge called Beringia that connected Asia
and North America.
Eventually these
seasonally nomadic
peoples, known to
archaeologists as
Paleo-Indians,
followed animals
that they hunted into
the woodlands of
what is now Illinois.
They did not plant
crops but fed
themselves by
gathering plants,
fishing, and hunting
both large and small animals. The very large animals, called
megafauna, were Pleistocene mammals such as woolly
mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, musk oxen, and
giant beavers. All of these species would become extinct. Paleo-
Indians lived in small groups of only a few families. Food and
other resources were widely scattered, and hunting methods for
very large animals were not efficient enough to support large
Glossary
Beringia—the land
bridge that once
united Asia and
North America
seasonally
nomadic—moving
from place to place
as seasons change
in order to hunt and
gather food
archaeologists—
scientists who study
the people, customs,
and life of ancient
times in order to
reconstruct a picture
of life in the past
megafauna—very
large prehistoric
animals
Pleistocene—a time
beginning around 2
Map of Asia and North America
showing Beringia and the possible
routes of Paleo—indian people.
Courtesy Illinois State Museum.
Glossary continued next page