This wide-ranging book is the first to offer---in one volume---detailed

results of many of the investigations of French colonial sites made in

the mid-continent during the last decade. It includes work done at Fort

St. Louis, Fort de Chartres, Fort Massac, French Peoria, Cahokia, Prairie

du Pont, Prairie du Rocher, and other locations controlled by the French

during a time when their dominance in North America was more than twice

that of Britain and Spain combined.

Five of the book's fifteen chapters summarize major excavations at colonial

fortifications, four of which are public monuments that currently attract

thousands of visitors each year. Another five chapters deal with French

colonial villages, and the remainder of the book is devoted to diet, trade,

the role of historic documents in the reconstruction of life on the French

colonial frontier, and other topics.