Today's archaeological Fieldwork in Focus comes from Corin Pursell, 2011 field director of the excavations at Kincaid Mounds, Illinois.
The 2011 field school for Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC) will be held at the Kincaid Mounds, an important Mississippian mound center located in the Ohio River floodplain (called the Black Bottom) in far southern Illinois near the town of Metropolis.
Kincaid Mounds Field Crew 2010. Photo by Tamira K. Brennan (2010)
The Kincaid site was a major political center for the Mississippian period between AD 1000-1500, and it includes five major platform mounds and several smaller ones. Residential areas surround the mound and the site was protected by a wooden palisade wall.
First excavated by the University of Chicago in the 1930s, Kincaid has been the focus of ongoing research by SIUC since 2003, which began by using remote sensing to guide excavations studying wider aspects of the site. Previous years of excavations have revealed a large circular building that may have been a council house, demonstrated the great extent of the two-mile-long outer wall, showed that the site is one of the largest Mississippian centers, and found more monumental construction at the site than expected. In the process over the years we have found beads, intact vessels, figurines, arrowheads, and more. This year we hope to excavate an anomalous rise and a structure near the central mound group.
Mississippian Hooded Bottle from the Kincaid Site
Photo Credit: Tamira K. Brennan (2010)
Course work at Kincaid Mounds involves two consecutive four-week long, three-credit-hour sessions, between May 23-June 17 and June 20-July 15, 2011. Students may sign up for either one or both sessions. During the week, students will be residing in Brookport, Illinois, and returning to Carbondale for the weekends. Estimated total costs per session (including undergraduate tuition and fees, housing, food and transportation to and from the site and to and from Carbondale) are US$1,024. Out-of-state students pay in-state tuition.
The archaeology field school offers full-time instruction in archaeological field methods, with an emphasis on basic excavation and laboratory methods. There are no prerequisites, but an introductory course in archaeology is recommended, and a completed application form is required to register.
See the flyer for additional information, or contact project organizer Dr. Paul Welch (pwelch@siu.edu) or site director Corin Pursell (cpursell@siu.edu).
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