The Wehrle site is an approximately 300 b.c. Hopewell village located approximately 9 miles south of Cowden on the Kaskaskia river. Mounds above the site stretch for a distance of about a mile. Hopewell place their mounds directly above the villages.
The site has been created out of an alluvial fan from a stream which cuts through the bluff. The north side of the stream has several acres elevated above the flood plain . It has been farmed for many years and artifacts have always been found.
My son Josh and I brought a feature on the site to the attention of an archaeologist, Paula Cross. we did a test pit and found a clay lined pit. This was a fairly rare feature and Paula decided to do further digging . We enlisted the help of members of the Kaskaskia archaeology society and the local community. We had a weekend volunteer force of 10 -2o and dug for about 5 months. When we were done we had excavated the main pit of 25 feet by 25 feet to a depth of about 2 feet and about 5 other pits 6 feet by 6 feet , located randomly around the site.
It was a total volunteer , very laid back dig. we referred to the site as field of dreams. a movie was released at the time about a baseball field in a corn field in which famous dead players walked out of the cornfield to play games. It was very similar at the site which was surrounded by cornfield. All day long people would appear out of the cornfield to visit or particapate in the dig.
The dig produced approximately 5 celts, 30 arrowheads and hundreds or thousands of pot sherds. the celt in the photographs was found at the last of the dig in a pit in which we thought we had already reached sterile ground. A similar one which had been broken and reground distal end was found earlier. It had about the same mass and bit size, so it can be assumed it was originally the same size. the flint consisted of lowes and snyders. Material of burlington and dongola was common. the ceramics were the most important . They showed great variety and an influence to both the Mississippian and Ohio Hopewell, which makes this and important site.
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