The Vacant Quarter Revisited: Late Mississippian Abandonment of the Lower Ohio Valley Cobb and Butler

1.What is the Vacant Quarter and who was the first to refer to it as such?

2.What is the Mississippian Period Chronology in the Lower Ohio Valley? – What are the main sites discussed in this article?

3.What is significant about the sites in the Southern Illinois uplands?

4.What do the upland site chronologies tell us about the abandonment of the southern Illinois region?

5.What does the information from these sites tell us about Mississippian abandonment of the area? – How does Cahokia fit into all of this.

6.Is this abandonment unique for prehistoric North America? – What are some other examples?

7.What do the authors propose as the reasons for this abandonment?

8.Where did they all go?