Two village sites of the Illini have been investigated by the Illinois State Museum, one near Utica, LaSalle County (jointly with the University of Chicago) and one in Randolph County near the mouth of the Kaskaskia River. This last site was occupied for over a century by descendants of the Kaskaskias and other Illini tribes. Except for a small area where Archaic artifacts are found, it is a “pure” site. The Illini tools, weapons and ornaments of native make were the usual chipped flint triangular arrowheads, simple flint drills and scrapers, rough stone hammers and abrading stones, small ground stone pendants, polished stone “Micmac” or “keel-based” pipe bowls (many of catlinite), the long-stemmed L-shaped catlinite pipes (sometimes called “Siouan”), and cut and engraved bone ornaments. An arrowshaft straightener carries an etching of a buffalo cow. Pottery is rare, but the pieces found in association with European trade goods are characteristically Middle Mississippian. [Illustration: Fig. 37. European trade goods and artifacts made from European materials. All from Illini village near mouth of Kaskaskia River, Randolph County. A, conical arrowhead of sheet copper; B, chipped glass arrowhead; C, brass arrowhead; D, hammer of flintlock gun; E, iron blade of clasp knife; F, an iron scissor-blade; G, part of a jew’s-harp.] The Illini made artifacts from fragments of European materials, iron spear- and arrowheads, brass and chipped glass arrowheads, brass pendants, and beads of broken porcelain. European trade materials far exceed in number the native products. Usually they are fragmentary (except for colored glass beads of many kinds): parts of copper and brass kettles, iron handles, gun hammers and other parts, lead balls and the molds for making them, molds for casting crosses and ornaments, iron spoons, kitchen and clasp knife blades of iron, “Dutch” white pottery pipes, scissors, jew’s-harps, bottles for wine and olive oil, brass buttons and finger rings. The Illini seem to have cast lead into musket balls and chipped gun flints into shape but beyond that made no attempt to learn machine-age technologies. For firearms, gunpowder, iron knives and hatchets they were wholly dependent on the white invaders, a great disadvantage in event of hostilities and one that eventually cost them ownership of their ancient homelands. THE INDIANS LEAVE ILLINOIS For historic tribes of the state other than the Illini little is known of their archaeology. Culturally it is almost a certainty that all were, soon after contact, largely disorganized due to partial economic dependence, European diseases and the alcohol trade, to diminishing game, loss of other resources, and to military pressures from white governments and contiguous Indian groups.