We have emerged from a long stretch of high temperatures and drought having uncovered portions of a number of features.  Nearly all of these date to the early Mississippian period.  However, yesterday we uncovered a large portion of a burned Oneota structure.  Although outside our immediate research interests such a structure provides the opportunity to gather important information about 14th century household organization in the Central Illinois River Valley.  Over the next few days we will be posting more excavation photos of our progress.

The profile of Feature 5, a large and deep storage pit re-exposed. We excavated half of this feature last year and will excavate the second half this year. Greg and the two supervisors uncovered this profile in one day and we now need a chiropractor on the project.

Very impressed with our field crew’s first day of excavating.  We reestablished the grid, laid out three 2 x 2 m units and excavated about 18 cm of pz in each.  We placed these units to uncover several features we partially excavated last summer including a wall trench structure and a deep storage pit (see figure below).

The 2012 field season of the Living with War Archaeological Project begins tomorrow.  Greg Wilson, Christina Friberg, and Jenna Santy arrive in Peoria Illinois in the early afternoon and will get to work shortly afterwards.  Field school students arrive on the 23rd.  This season we will be excavating at the C.W. Cooper and the Orendorf sites (see the map below).  Excavations will be targeting areas with early Mississippian occupations.  We are fortunate to be combining forces with a field school from Western Illinois University, Macomb directed by Dr. Patricia Anderson.  Look for more updates in the next week.

Finding numerous pit features and structure foundations beneath the midden at the C.W Cooper site