West Palisade:
Dr. Mary Beth Trubitt continued her pursuit of the palisade (stockade) wall around the western side of the central ceremonial precinct. Excavations during the 1960s through the 1980s had located four wall constructions on the east and south sides. Trubitt had identified some segments of the deep trenches that had been dug to support the wall posts to the south and west of the Twin Mounds during the last two seasons.

Last year, she found what appeared to be part of the wall heading toward Mound 48, in the northwest corner of the Grand Plaza, and her plan was to see if they could identify where it turned west to go around that mound. With a field school from Henderson State University, where she is now headquartered with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey, Trubitt expanded some of last year's excavation units and opened some new ones. Some of the new units were placed west of the other excavations, where remote sensing tests using electrical resistivity had suggested there were subsurface disturbances suggestive of possible wall trenches.

Unfortunately, these did not turn out to be parts of the palisade, but other features, and it is not clear at this point just where the wall does turn. Future research in this area should clarify where the wall(s) continue through this part of the site.

Monks Mound:
SIU Edwardsville continued its program of trying to understand more about Monks Mound, following up on work they began with the repairs to the west slump and the installation of the new stairs up the front over the past few years.

Dr. William Woods led the project, which involved field school students from SIUE, SIU Carbondale under Dr. John Sexton, and also students from the University of Goettingen, Germany. Most of their project at Cahokia focused on the First Terrace of Monks Mound to test the hypothesis of its being a late addition to the front of the mound. They also are trying to identify other possible features, such as structures or pits, that lie below the surface.

Excavations during the 1960s-70s had identified historic period (mid 1700s) occupation, burials and a French chapel location on the west side of the First Terrace, all relating to an occupation by Illini (Illinois) Indians long after the Mississippians had left. The testing for the new stairway in the late 1990s also identified some large refuse pits near the center of this terrace, full of the remains of deer, bear, turtles, swans, fish, and other animals, as well as French period ceramics, gun parts, glass and knives. Recently, SIUE and SIUC have been using resistivity and other methods on the eastern portion of this terrace to see if they can identify additional features.

They also have been taking vertical cores across the terrace. The preliminary results seem to confirm that the First Terrace was indeed a late addition to the front of the mound, based on detected soil changes and angles of slope. The other resistivity test results are still being analyzed, but it will be interesting to see what they determine. No additional testing was done in the area of the stone mass under the Second Terrace, due to time and equipment restraints, but some work may be done this fall.