White and colleagues (2020) have argued that after Cahokia's AD 1400 decline, the native population in the Horseshoe Lake Watershed rebounded beginning in AD 1500 and peaked around 1650, and that the native groups populating the area were members of the Illinois Confederation. These arguments are based on a population reconstruction obtained from fecal stanol concentrations from Horseshoe Lake sediment cores and regional historical, archaeological, and environmental data. We argue that their interpretations are problematic because they discount extensive regional archaeological and historical datasets and do not consider alternative hypotheses that could explain high levels of fecal stanol concentrations in lake sediments.

Skousen and Aiuvalasit critique our article on the post-Mississippian occupation of the Horseshoe Lake watershed (White et al. 2020) along two lines: (1) that our findings are not supported due to a lack of archaeological evidence, and (2) that we do not consider alternative hypotheses in explaining the lake's fecal stanol record. We first respond to the matter of fecal stanol deposition in Horseshoe Lake and then address the larger issue, the primacy of archaeological data in interpreting the past.

The occupation history of the Cahokia archaeological complex (ca. AD 1050–1400) has received significant academic attention for decades, but the subsequent repopulation of the region by indigenous peoples is poorly understood. This study presents demographic trends from a fecal stanol population reconstruction of Horseshoe Lake, Illinois, along with information from archaeological, historical, and environmental sources to provide an interpretation of post-Mississippian population change in the Cahokia region. Fecal stanol data indicate that the Cahokia region reached a population minimum by approximately AD 1400, regional population had rebounded by AD 1500, a population maximum was reached by AD 1650, and population declined again by AD 1700. The indigenous repopulation of the area coincides with environmental changes conducive to maize-based agriculture and bison-hunting subsistence practices of the Illinois Confederation. The subsequent regional depopulation corresponds to a complicated period of warfare, epidemic disease, Christianization, population movement, and environmental change in the eighteenth century. The recognition of a post-Mississippian indigenous population helps shape a narrative of Native American persistence over Native American disappearance.