The Illinois River Valley
A new article by Robert Morrissey in Past and Present examines how climate change affected the ecology of what is today southern Illinois and its indigenous inhabitants during the seventeen and eighteenth century. The author deftly navigates perspectives of indigenous people, Jesuit observers, and data in climate proxy records to show how drought during the Maunder Minimum affected the regeneration of forests on their western borders with the prairie. Indigenous Illinois practices held the mosaic of environments in their territory relatively stable until drought diminished the forest’s ability to regenerate, possibly driving them to relocate their settlements further north. Read the full article here.