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}} Dickson Mounds is a Native American settlement site and burial mound complex near Lewistown, Illinois. It is located in Fulton County on a low bluff overlooking the Illinois River. It is a large burial complex containing at least two cemeteries, ten superimposed burial mounds, and a platform mound. The Dickson Mounds site was founded by 800 CE and was in use until after 1250 CE. The site is named in honor of chiropractor Don Dickson, who began excavating it in 1927 and opened a private museum that formerly operated on the site. Don Dickson was a chiropractor and discovered the burial mounds on his family farm. Instead of removing the bones, he only removed the dirt. He covered his excavation with a tent. He later replaced his tent with a building and set up a private museum.〔"Discover Dickson Mounds Museum." Welcome to the Illinois State Museum--Illinois State Museum. Dickson Mounds Museum. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. The Dickson Mounds Museum is a museum erected on the site in 1972 by the U.S. state of Illinois; it describes the life cycles and culture of Native Americans living in the Illinois River valley over a period of 12,000 years since the last Ice Age. The museum is part of the Illinois State Museum system.〔Note: This website mistakenly asserts that Dickson Mounds is a National Historic Site〕 As part of the Illinois State Museum system, the Dickson Mounds Museum closed indefinitely on September 30, 2015, pursuant to State budgetary action.〔http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/museums/ct-illinois-museum-closings-20150624-column.html〕 ==Native life site== While the members of most hunter-gatherer cultures travel extensively or even practice a nomadic lifestyle, the exceptional productivity of the Illinois River valley in fish, shellfish and game made it possible for semi-permanent settlements to develop. Archaeological examination of these sites have generated significant insights into the living conditions of Native Americans over time and the levels of technology they possessed. A large parcel of the adjacent river bottomland is undergoing preservation and ecosystem restoration as part of the Emiquon Project. The Emiquon wetlands generated much of the food eaten by the people who lived on or near this blufftop site. In 2009, an excavation by Michigan State University turned up sherds of pottery, arrowheads and the foundations of houses and other structures that date back to about 1300 CE. Some of the people who lived here were actually buried in Dickson Mounds itself. Their skeletons were excavated and displayed to the public from the 1930s until 1992, when in a controversial move the burial display was resealed due to Native American concerns.〔 It is estimated that there are at least 3,000 burials at this site. The earlier burials were in mounds that were still being built as late as the ninth century, while later burials were in cemeteries.〔 This exemplifies the shift away from the earlier focus on burial mounds as the monumental foci of communities lacking large settlements to the later emphasis on platform mounds at the center of towns.〔 Mississippians decentralized cemeteries, making their communities rather than their burial places the center of their lives.〔 "One group of four Mississippian people buried together appear to have been sacrificed at the Dickson Site". Their heads were removed and replaced by pots. This was not a practice that would have been common earlier.〔 After the sealing,the museum was renovated as a series of galleries that attempt to portray the history of the site. For example, the River Valley Gallery exhibition attempts to depict indigenous life patterns here since the close of the last Ice Age, while the "Reflections on Three Worlds" Gallery exhibition attempts to describe how scholars have used archeological findings to generate inductive evidence on the residents' life and culture.〔 Excavators left 248 burials in place after exposure, and these were long displayed inside a specially built museum enclosure. The American Indian objections to the display led to its closure in 1992. After that, three excavated dwellings now remain open to visitors at the site and the museum displays chronicle prehistoric life in the region.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dickson Mounds」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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