ABSTRACT
Until quite recently, Archaic sites had not been investigated on the American Bottom floodplain of the Mississippi River east of St. Louis, even though Archaic projectile points are inventoried in assemblages gathered by surface surveys (Benchley 1975; Harn 1971; Munson 1971). Most of the Archaic finds have been from the northern half of this area, and the bulk of these are from the surface of the partially preserved, 6-m Wood River terrace along the interior edge of the floodplain. None of these Archaic "sites" has been excavated. In the southern half of the American Bottom, more recent surveys (Kelly et al 1979) located 12 potential Archaic sites, 5 of which included Archaic components when they were excavated. Data that are available from 4 of these were developed during the FAI 270 Archaeological Mitigation Project; Archaic material also has been uncovered at Cahokia (Benchley and DePuydt 1982).
