Ramey Field Investigations

During the busy decade of the 1970s, UW-Milwaukee researchers conducted several smaller projects at Cahokia. One of these projects consisted of the controlled surface collection of the Ramey Field just east of Monks Mound. The surface collection conducted between Monks Mound and the palisade used a 2.5 meter grid unit, and provided the basis for Barbara VanderLeest's dissertation. The surface collection was later expanded to the east of the palisade. The surface collection of the Ramey Field was conducted as part of a project investigating whether there may have been a plaza located east of Monks Mound.

Although Cahokia had been collected for many years by local collectors and professionals alike, these lacked the controls that was provided by the UW-Milwaukee surface collection. The Ramey Field surface collection recovered materials dating to all of the cultural phases at Cahokia, revealing a continued continued occupation of this portion of the site. The surface collection also showed a differential distribution of materials from the various phases, with most of the materials from the early phases concentrated along Cahokia Creek and around Mound 36 suggesting that various community units occupied the site at different times.