In 1967, archaeologists excavating a flat-topped mound in southwestern Illinois found something unlike anything in North American archaeology. Beneath a man buried on a bed of twenty thousand individually drilled shell beads — arranged in the shape of a bird — were 272 individuals. Almost all young women, between 15 and 25 years old. Buried in layers. In precise arrangements. Over what appears to have been multiple separate events spanning decades.
Strontium isotope analysis of their teeth showed that many of them did not grow up in Cahokia. daniel dubois They were brought from elsewhere. No one has produced a satisfying explanation for what happened in Mound 72.
Eight miles east of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, lie the remains of the largest city in pre-Columbian North America. At its peak around 1100 AD, Cahokia had a population of between 10,000 and 20,000 people. London at the same time had roughly 15,000.
The people who built it constructed 120 earthen mounds across six square miles. The largest — Monks Mound — rises 100 feet above the plain. Its base is larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza. They built it without metal tools, without the wheel, without writing.
They also built Woodhenge — a solar calendar of 48 wooden posts aligned with such astronomical precision that the spring equinox sunrise falls exactly over the eastern marker. And they sustained a continental trade network that brought copper from the Great Lakes, mica from the Appalachians, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, and obsidian from Yellowstone — over 1,400 miles away — simultaneously.
The defensive wall surrounding the central district — 20,000 logs — was built, torn down, and rebuilt at least four times. Why do you rebuild a defensive wall four times? Because whatever you were afraid of didn't go away.
Around 1350 AD, Cahokia was empty. No burning. No catastrophic destruction. The city that housed 20,000 people simply ceased to be occupied. Researchers have proposed climate change, drought, political collapse, and disease. Every explanation is partial.
The builders have no identified living descendants. No one speaks their language. No one knows what they called themselves or their city.
Today, Cahokia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site receiving 300,000 visitors a year. daily mirror The Great Pyramid of Giza receives 14 million. A structure in Illinois with a larger footprint than Giza gets two percent of Giza's visitors. Because most Americans have never heard of it.
SOURCES
— Timothy Pauketat, Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi (2009), Viking
— Melvin Fowler et al., The Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia (1999), Illinois State Museum
— bongo UNESCO World Heritage List: Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site
— Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Cahokia excavation records
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