These are written accounts made by people who witnessed events and wrote them down in what scientists consider the 'recent' past. Historical records in the United States have been made over the past 300 years. This section will include land survey records and journal entries made by surveyors in the field. Land surveys show a 'snapshot' look at the landscape as it was when the surveyors were there. Journals offer descriptions of the same landscape, and descriptions of events that changed the land, like fires, settlement, and cultivation.
Tree rings are another source of information about the recent and ancient past.
Because trees produce rings yearly, rings provide information about fires, droughts, and general growth conditions, and give us a time frame in which to place these events. Fossils are preserved original remains or preserved evidence of plants and animals. Sometimes trees and forests are preserved. Fossils are preserved in a variety of places, from lake-mud and peat bogs to very dry environments. Illinois State Museum scientists use fossils to learn what ancient landscapes looked like.