Archival salvage archaeology: Stuart Struever’s 1958-59 excavations at the Heineken Site in Putnam County

Stuart Struever's Early and Middle Woodland-focused fieldwork studies at the Heineken and Kuhne sites in Putnam County during the 1950s represent the most extensive habitation-site excavations ever undertaken in the Big Bend area of the upper Illinois Valley. However no reports of excavation results were ever completed for either site. The Illinois Department of Transportation's recent Route 29 highway-improvement project, which threatened to impact portions of the Heineken site, has provided an opportunity to evaluate Struever's 1958-59 Heineken work, conduct further test excavations at the site, and survey the few other Putnam County archaeological field studies undertaken before and after Struever's work there.