Cahokia Mounds

Located in present day Collinsville, Illinois is Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which was once home to the largest city north of Mexico from 700 to 1400 A.D. Settled by the Mississippian people, today their decline remains a mystery. First visited in 1811 by traveler Henry Brackenridge and considered the “discoverer of Cahokia” only in the sense that he wrote several papers and articles about the findings to the public’s attention. After walking around the mounds, Brackenridge described that the locations of the last inhabitants were clearly visible to him, as were fragments of their tools and utensils. Many extensive archeological excavations and several case study theories have come about through the years as to why this magnificent ancient metropolis faced such demise.

The Enlightened Archaeologist – an article authored by Jeffrey Hantman and Gary Dunham chronicles Thomas Jefferson’s investigation of the Indian burial mound located on the South Fork of the Rivanna River in the 18th century. The site excavated by Jefferson, however, is no longer visible, most likely due to dissipation by inevitable natural occurrences (I.E. excessive rainfall, flooding rivers, etc.) or human activity such as farming. The “Father of American Archaeology” correctly predicts the latter in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, in which he states, mounds “…put under cultivation are much reduced in their height, and spread in width, by the plough, and will probably disappear in time” (1787). Fortunately for Archaeologists of the late 20th century (1988) an Indian burial mound identical to that of the one Jefferson described in his book was uncovered just 14 miles from the South Fork of the Rivanna River.

|1500 CE |Early Woodland Period. Use of pottery and building of earth tombs emerges especially in the Mississippi |

The so-called mound builders built big ceremonial and burial mounds that were located in the Ohio Valley. Cahokia, near East St. Louis today, had a population of about 40,000 people.

The first time I heard about the Mound Builders, which was in this class, these people seemed like a very primitive group. What was so exciting about having the skill of piling up a bunch of dirt. Then I was able to see some of these mounds and the scale was nothing I had imagined. These mounds were huge and also contained distinct structural shapes. Tombs, houses, and religious structures were constructed in or on top of the mounds. What made the edifices even more amazing was the time period they were built. Constructed all the way back to 3000 B.C., the mounds rivaled the most advanced engineering techniques in the world.

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania was first excavated in the 1970’s by James M. Adovasio, and was continuously played with up into the 1990’s. Meadowcroft is the longest standing case for archaeological evidence of the pre-Clovis culture in the Eastern United States, and has dates ranging from 12,800-16,175 RCYBP. This sites’ importance to the pro pre-Clovis case is up there with the Monte Verde site, and not only because both were among the first to be discovered. Especially since this Pennsylvania site had such a large range of lithic artifacts unearthed that it was enough to define the Miller complex which “consists of thin bifaces, including one lanceolate point, the Miller Lanceolate small prismatic blades; retouched flake tools and blades; and debitage related to latestage core and biface reduction and tool kit maintenance.” This sequence of tools helped to identify the type of tools that pre-Clovis people used, and let archaeologists acknowledge the differences between pre-Clovis and Clovis

This decsion to be built in the cliffs was theorized to protect them from other enemy tribes and attacks from such tribes. The people of Cahokia believed in a cult-like religion, it linked the church and state together. While the Anasazi believed in working together and that each person should have a role that they played out. A sense of a community compared to the people of Cahokia. The people of Cahokia introduced a ball game named chunkey and would eventually be replaced by stickball. The people of Cahokia dispersed to all direction and descendants scattered all over the continent. This was largely due to over exhaustion of the soil which lead to no crops being able to grow. Also, flooding was caused by areas of timber being cleared out and could have affected housing and crops as well. Lastly, long periods of deadly warfare were a major factor in the downfall of Cahokia. The ancient city of Mesa Verde downfall was mostly attributed to the over exhaustion of soil and lack of rainfall. This later lead to a drought and made the people conform to small groups to survive. Like the people of Cahokia, the people of Mesa Verde never fully vanished but spread throughout the

a. Cahokia was a Mississippian settlement located in modern-day Illinois, which was home to around 25,000 people at its peak

As Indian groups started to settle in the Mississippi floodplain, their cultures and political systems began to intertwine, creating a complex sociopolitical structure (Page, 70). The largest polity to arise out of this area, known as the American Bottom, was Cahokia. At its height, it resembled a city, extending over five square miles, mounds and structures that towered over smaller dwellings, and a population, that some believe to have been the largest, north of Mexico, for its time (Page, 70). Estimates predict several thousand lived at the site of Cahokia, many of them elites, whose particular talents or skills, earned them the privileged title (Pauketat). Beyond its boundaries were smaller groups and

The Cahokia Indians were settled near modern-day St. Louis, Missouri close to the Mississippi River. Some archaeologist believe that the Cahokia once had 20,000 Natives and over 100 mounds in their village. The reason they believe in these outstanding growth in people was the land around them. Situated with land with great

Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi, by Timothy R. Pauketat, is on the history, society, and religious customs of the Cahokian people. Consisting of twelve chapters, each chapter deals with a different aspect of Cahokian society. Chapter one opens up by telling the reader how the stars in the sky played an important role in the Native American belief system. The Planet Venus was the key figure in all of this, in fact the ancient Maya believed Venus to be a god. According to the Cahokians , Venus had a dual nature, in the daytime Venus was viewed a masculine, and in the evening it was seen as feminine. In the same chapter, Pauketat lets us know about the discovery of, two hundred packed-earth mounds constructed in a

During the 19th and 20th century, archeologists were still trying to find more information about Cahokia and its people before it was all demolished for the growing city of St. Louis. During this time, many had flawed and misinformed ideas about the area. A very prominent archeologist, James Griffin, believed that few inhabitants actually live in this area and they only stayed for short periods of times. Gh6This

This study is focus on the 11th Unnamed Cave in Tennessee. This cave was the first of its kind because this cave is the only one that was found to contain pictograph, petroglyph, and mud glyph all in one site. The article explain that the site is significant because there are evidence to showed that the site underwent a series of diverse but interrelated uses. The first out of all the cave sites to contain all three different form of rock art. Also, because the site was found in the eighteenth century which had some form of documentations on the uses of the cave. The authors believes that since the cave showed many different kind of activities, it is possible that the activities reflect a complex behaviors more elaborated and sacred than

Caddoan Mississippian peoples, irregardlesss of differences, were still linked to the larger Mississippian world to the east and other cultures to the southwest by trade networks which traversed the North American continent. Artifacts found in Craig Mound at the Spiro site in the Arkansas River Valley encompassed such items as: basketry, copper, woven fabric, lace, feathers, fur, and carved stone statues. Some artifacts originated as far away as Cahokia in Illinois, Etowah and Ocmulgee in Georgia, and Moundville in Alabama. Many items displayed the ornate symbolism of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, a multiregional and pan-linguistic trade and religious network. Exotic material discovered at Caddoan Mississippian sites included colored

Dating to 1000 B.C., the Kolomoki complex near present-day Blakely is one of the best-known sites of these ancient civilizations. During the Mississippian Period (A.D. 800-1600), at least sixteen significant settlements dotted the Chattahoochee's banks south of the fall line. As these civilizations died because of exposure to European diseases, native survivors from other areas moved into the river valley below present-day Atlanta. (Lynn Willoughby)