Corin Pursell (PhD, Archaeology)  Corin received a B.A. in Anthropology from Washington University in Saint Louis (his home city) in 2001.  He received his M.A. in Anthropology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in August 2004.  The title of Corin’s  Masters thesis was Geographic Distribution and Symbolism of Colored Mound Architecture in the Mississippian Southeast.  He presented a paper of the same name at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Saint Louis, Missouri in 2004.  Corin started fieldwork in the year 2000 at Cahokia Mounds working on Mound 34 with Dr. John Kelly.  From 2000-2001 Corin worked in the field or in the lab on materials from Mound 34 and the Lehmann-Sommers (Whiteside School) site in the Uplands outside of the American Bottom.  He was the assistant to the PI (Dr. Gayle Fritz) in a pedestrian survey of the fields of the eastern American Bottom in 2001.  In 2002 and 2003, Corin worked for Dr. David Anderson and John Cornelison during the excavation of Mound A of the Shiloh Indian Mounds on the Shiloh Battlefield in Tennessee.  Also in 2002 and 2003, Corin assisted Dr. Heather Lapham in the rehabilitation of the Stoltar Curation Facility for the Center of Archaeological Investigations.  In early 2004, Corin assisted Dr. Paul Welch with analysis of the ceramic materials from Shiloh.  Corin participated in his first excavation outside of the United States at Tayata in Oaxaca, Mexico with Dr. Andrew Balkansky.  From 2004-2005  Corin excavated at the George Reeves site near the American Bottom and performed survey around nearby Sugarloaf Mound with Dr. John Kelly.  Over the summer of 2005, Corin was one of three TAs for the SIUC field school at Kincaid Mounds for Dr. Paul Welch.  Corin’s primary interests include chiefdoms, color symbolism, mound architecture, ceramics, and the various Mississippian cultures.  He really enjoys archaeology and is still excited to be doing this.  Corin is am back at SIUC for that reason, but also thanks to a Fellowship award from the University, for which he is extremely grateful.