St. Louis, MO

Last week, I was in St. Louis for the annual archaeology conference (the SAAs). I presented a paper and organized an all-day symposium with Maria (a PhD student from MSU). Here's Maria and I by the podium in our session room.


Our symposium was on Thursday (which was the first full day of the conference). On the other days, I attended other papers, went sightseeing, and did a lot of networking. I took pictures of my sightseeing trips. The first place I went was the St. Louis arch, which was only a few blocks from the hotel and conference center.

Here is the view from the arch. This river is (of course) the Mississippi. This picture is looking southeast.

Here is the view out the other side of the arch, looking out on downtown. St. Louis was a very nice city to visit. There were decent restaurants & the downtown was so clean and safe (perhaps my own expectations are a bit skewed these days). Anyway, the Cardinals baseball stadium was right downtown, and there were games on Friday and Saturday that brought us into close contact with many hardcore Cardinals fans. The Saturday game was actually quite historic--it went on for 20 innings! Most local bars (where the networking took place) had the game on, so I watched the last couple innings.

I got a ticket to go up the arch. There are stairs, but they can only be used in an emergency. Instead, you travel up the arch in small pod-like compartments. On the way up, I was comfortable enough, since there were two other adults and two small children in the pod with me. On the way down however, I was wedged in a car with four large adults and one violin, which was a little uncomfortable. Anyway, here I am at the top. You can see one of the viewing windows in the background.

One more picture of the arch here, as I was heading back to the conference center. I wanted a shot that captured some of the lovely park built up around the monument. They had a lot of nice trees and endless lawns (at least they seemed endless).

The other wightseeing trip I took was to Cahokia, an important archaeological site located about 20 minutes out of St. Louis. Cahokia was the home of a large Mississippian settlement. It is also where Monks Mound is located. Monks Mound is the largest earthen structure in North America. Monks Mound is not the only mound on the site however. There are several others. This picture shows one of the other smaller mounds (one of the twin mounds, which are south of the ceremonial plaza).

Monks Mound has stairs so visitors can climb up it. Archaeologists have found the remains of wooden planks in the same location for the same purpose, which is pretty cool. It is hard to get scale from a picture, but the tiny people at the top of the stairs can give you some idea.

Here is me at the top of the mound. If you click on the picture to get the larger view, you will be able to see the arch in the downtown skyline behind me. It was a beautiful sunny day.