Starr Village and Mound Group


The Starr Village and Mound Group, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located on a bluff overlooking Macoupin Creek southwest of Carlinville in Macoupin County, Illinois.

Artifacts

The "Macoupin Creek figurine" is a Mississippian stone statue found at the site in a stone box grave sometime late in the nineteenth century. It measures in height and depicts a shaman kneeling with a gourd rattle in one hand and a snake or snakeskin wrapped around his neck. The figure also has conch shell and bead ear ornaments and a raccoon skin headdress. Because of the age of the burial and the time of the statues believed manufacture it is posited that the figure was a curated heirloom, buried long after its manufacture. It is now in the collection of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.