It is not to be confused with the Kaskaskia village of French origin below Cahokia. Marquette, who in established a mission at the village, was replaced 2 years later by Father Claude Jean Allouez, who found a village of houses that was occupied by 7 other bands of the Illinois in addition to the Kaskaskia. On his way up the Illinois River, he noted the natural fortification now called Starved Rock and sent Tonty a message to occupy it in case of an Iroquois attack.
Tonty moved there in April , but he did not fortify it. In September, a war party of to Iroquois arrived, causing the 7, to 8, inhabitants of Old Kaskaskia Village to flee downstream immediately. About Illinois warriors fled after a few days of fruitless negotiating. Tonty, forced to leave the area, moved to Green Bay. In the latter part of , the Kaskaskia and other Illinois bands returned and settled, probably at the abandoned village, the Old Kaskaskia Village site.
In all, about 20, Indians gathered in the neighborhood, including some 3, warriors. As the confederacy fell apart, La Salle's dream of an Indian empire vanished. After a council decided in the fall of that Starved Rock could not be defended, the bands of Illinois still remaining moved to Lake Peoria. A faction of the Illinois from Lake Peoria that established a settlement near Starved Rock in and remained in this locality until probably did not occupy the Old Kaskaskia Village Site.
Archeological investigation at the site has yielded large quantities of European goods in association with Indian items, especially trade goods such as glass beads, copper and brass beads and jinglers, coiled brass wire ornaments, glass bottles, and iron knife and ax blades.
Buffalo bones, extremely rare at aboriginal sites east of the Mississippi, are quite common. Either the Illinois hunted west of the Mississippi during the period of occupation, or buffalo roamed over the Eastern prairie. Present Appearance. The site has been used for agricultural purposes for several generations, but much valuable archeological data probably lie untouched beneath the plow zone. Only a small percentage of the site has been excavated.
