Note 9 — THE INITIAL WOODLAND CULTURES[9] (2500-500 B.C.)

The Initial Woodland in Illinois is usually considered to consist of three cultural divisions or units, the Black Sand, the Red Ochre and the Morton. The only known Red Ochre sites are mounds which undoubtedly are the burial places of important personages of a cultural group whose campsites and artifact assemblages have not as yet been identified as such. The graves yield a number of artifact types that are identical with those found in Black Sand villages. It is possible the Red Ochre mounds belong to the Black Sand people and that the mounds and special burial customs may have been continued into or adopted by the Morton cultural group and served still later as a framework for the highly elaborated Hopewellian funeral practices.