Ground-penetrating Radar Survey and Excavation of the Golden Eagle (11C120) Embankment

Summary

The Golden Eagle site (11C120), located near the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, in Calhoun County, Illinois, is the only known Lower Illinois Valley mound site that includes an earthen enclosure. The site is frequently discussed in regional interpretations of moundbuilding traditions, though little is directly known about the site, particularly the embankment. Archaeological investigations have been limited to topographic mapping, pedestrian surveys, and limited inspection of an erosional cross-section on the eastern side of the embankment. In 2013, the Center for American Archeology (CAA) began geophysical prospection of the site, followed by excavations conducted by the CAA and the Arizona State University Field School in 2014. In this paper, we report results from ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey and groundtruthing in the northwestern portion of the embankment. GPR and excavation results are used to characterize the structure of the embankment, and evaluate evidence from the eastern erosional profile.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage