B. Jacob Skousen, Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 23 E. Stadium Dr., Champaign, IL 61820, bskousen@illinois.edu ©2017 Illinois Archaeological Survey, Inc., Illinois Archaeology, vol. 29, pp. 191–210. 191 The Dugan Airfield Site A Stirling Phase Civic Node in the Southern Illinois Uplands B. Jacob Skousen Dugan Airfield (11MO718) is a multicomponent pre-Columbian site in the uplands of Monroe County, Illinois, a portion of which was excavated during the Illinois Route 3 Widening and Waterloo Bypass Project. In this paper, I contend that the site’s Stirling phase Mississippian component represents a “nodal” settlement based on the presence of elite architecture, feasting debris, and prestige objects and materials. Furthermore, nonlocal pottery vessels, hybrid structures, and the remains of river-dwelling fish from floodplain environments recovered from the site suggest that these feasts brought together and inte- grated diverse populations from the surrounding region. Overall, Dugan’s location along a major transportation corridor, its status as the only nodal settlement in the area, and the “commensal politics” that took place there indicate that the site was crucial in maintaining Cahokia’s influence on southern upland populations. Cahokia, located in present day Collinsville, Illinois, reached an unprecedented level of political and religious organization and dominance in the mid-eleventh century A.D. Cahokia’s inception involved the reorganization of the landscape, an influx of outlying populations, the development of new forms of pottery and house styles, and the adop- tion of a suite of new religious practices (see Pauketat 2004). The reorganization of the landscape included the appearance of so-called nodal settlements throughout the greater Cahokia region. These sites, with their Cahokian-made political-ceremonial objects and special-use architecture, indicate that a region-wide political-religious hi- erarchical structure was orchestrated and perpetuated by Cahokia’s elite to control and extract surplus food and goods from rural populations (Emerson 1997a, 1997b, 1997c). In this paper, I argue that the Dugan Airfield site (11MO718), a Mississippian settlement in the eastern uplands of Monroe County, was one of these nodal sites. Excavations performed during the Illinois Route 3 (FAP-14) Widening and Waterloo Bypass Project revealed elite architecture, prestige objects and materials, and feasting debris at the site, all trappings of a Stirling phase “civic node.” I further contend that