Test units were also placed into Mound 34, by Dr. James Brown of Northwestern University and Dr. John Kelly of the Central Mississippi Valley Archaeological Research Institute. They were trying to relocate excavation trenches placed into the mound by Gregory Perino in the 1950s. They want to clean out some of these trenches to reexpose the soil profiles and premound features to better define the time and stages of construction of this mound, which contained a lot of unusual features and high status artifacts. The inital tests did not relocate Perino's trench but re-examination of the old and new maps of the mound suggest they are very close. Additional remote sensing and test units this fall should confirm its location for excavation next year.

Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIUE) conducted a field school on Monks Mound, directed by Dr. William Woods. Professor John Sexton, of SIU-Carbondale and his geology students joined the field school in conducting magnetometry and resistivity surveys.

The field school did some detailed surveying of the mound with the intent of producing an updated and more accurate contour map. They also cored the soil to the west of Monks Mound, defining a large area of borrow pit for mound construction.

Remote sensing tests were begun to try to identify the stone mass under the Second Terrace. As noted in the Cahokian Spring 1998, the mass of stone cobbles or slabs was encountered while drilling to install horizontal drains to relieve internal water in the mound that was causing severe slumping of the west side. The drill ran horizontally through 32 feet of stone, about 150 feet into the mound and 40 feet below the surface of the Second Terrace. This summer they conducted some electronic resistivity tests and some magnetometer tests to try to determine the dimensions of the stone area. The results are preliminary and somewhat mixed at this time, and these tests would only define the general area rather than detailed dimensions. However, the tests do show something is there. Analysis of the data continues and additional testing is planned into the Fall, which may include vertical coring, seismic sounding or other techniques that may help define the thickness and type of stone. We will let you know more when we get the results.