This past summer, I took an archaeological field school in order to get experience in excavation methods. I registered for a six-week course through the Center for American Archeology located in Kampsville, Illinois. I had a great experience there and I learned a lot about excavation, archaeology in general, and the people who inhabited that region of Illinois for thousands of years. I got to see sites like Cahokia and Dickson Mounds too. They did put my flintknapping skills to good use by having me teach a couple of groups of highschoolers that were part of a program there.
Here is the group of the excavation field school students on top of Monks Mound at Cahokia. A lot more students were in the bioarchaeology field school that was running at the same time.
This is Monk's Mound from the ground.
I would highly recommend this field school to anyone who is an archaeology student. However, anyone can take a field school program there. Take a look at the Center for American Archeology's website for more information: http://www.caa-archeology.org/
Although I was really busy there, I did find a little time to knap on the weekends. Here is what I made.
Before I left for Illinois, I planned a trip for hunting flint in southern Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana. My parents and my knapping buddy Steve would pick me and we would spend a few days hunting flint. And that is exactly what we did! We first stopped to pick up some of the nice Burlington chert found around Kampsville and the Lower Illinois River valley in general. We picked up several buckets of nice material. Next, thanks to my buddy Mike, we went to the southern portion of the state and hunted Kaolin and Cobden chert. We hit the motherload!
The gravel bar where we hunted.
Displaying a nice, big piece of Kaolin flint!
And another!
In all, we spent two days at the this amazing site. Thanks again Mike! Next we headed to Kentucky, to a spot where I have collected hornstone a few times. You can find nice material there, but it needs to be carefully examined first. We then headed north to meet our buddy Brian Bailey, who hooked us up with a couple knappers we hadn't met before, Joel Robbinson and David Chandler. We had a great time meeting them and having a mini knap in!
Knappers... knapping
Here I'm posing with a large Snyders point that I made from a large piece of Sonora chert that Joel gave me.
Our combined haul after we got back to Michigan and sorted it all out.
A Lamellar bladecore and blades from heated Kaolin.
Heated Kaolin pieces, and Gypsy the cat.
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