Aarchaeological dig under way at Fort Kaskaskia

<span style="font-weight: 400;">ELLIS GROVE -- One by one, each bucketful of dirt is screened and closely examined as workers sift through the earthen remains of Fort Kaskaskia in pursuit of history.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Fifteen SIU-Carbondale students, including three teaching assistants, are conducting an archaeological dig at the fort site. The project is led by Mark Wagner, director for the SIU Center of Archeological Investigations and an associate professor in Anthropology at the university, and is expected to conclude within the next two and a half weeks.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">"This is both part of a class and kind of a research project," Wagner said. "This is the SIU field school in archaeology and we have a total of 15 students up here and it's being supported by a grant from the Lewis & Clark Foundation.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">"But one of the reasons why we're up here is very little is known about the history of this fort."</span>

For more on this story, see the June 7 print edition of the Herald Tribune