The Discovery Of Sun Falcon

Recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a World Heritage Site, Cahokia Mounds is located in the current day city of Collinsville, Illinois. Near the Mississippi River, this pre-history site is made of mounds scattered around an area of about Three and a half square miles of land. The park may be large, but the actual city of Cahokia in pre-history spread much further than what the park is recognized as today. Cahokia is recognized by historians as part of the Mississippian culture which groups them with other native civilizations that lived along the Mississippi River who shared architectural styles (like the mounds fount in Cahokia) as well as other attributes like maize based economics and tools

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

In recent years, ancient burial grounds have been frequently disturbed due to increasing surveillance by anthropologists and constructed on by state-of-the-art technology and are more critically protected than ever before. Understanding the importance of burial grounds gives an insight on the rich history of ancient Hawaii. They have influenced the burials performed, ancestors and their modern inhabitants, and how they have impacted modern Hawaii. Burial methods will range from the tallest peaks on land to burying those in the ocean. Ancestors influence these methods depending on their rank and actions, having their modern descendants have a choice to inherit these arrangements and protect their ancestors.

Concerning these mounds, scientists made some mistakes back in 1848 when examining them. At first, they believed that the Adena people built the Great Serpent Mound, but after more research and carbon dating, it was found that the Hopewell or Mississippian people where more likely to have built this mound.

For example the mayans had the largest structure in the americas until the twentieth century. That is really big in my opinion because there was no wheel or horses back then and it was all man made. For example in document 1 the quote says "This pyramid in Tikal was the tallest structure until the twentieth century." the fact that its still standing is amazing. Another example of the Mayans being advanced is that they created a writing system called a glyph and created a calendar!

According to Carr, writing began in the year 8000 BC, when people would use small clay tokens that were engraved with symbols as a way to keep track of livestock and goods (Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains). Then during the end of the fourth century BC, the Sumerians and Egyptians both developed their own systems of writings called cuneiform and hieroglyphs respectively. Cuneiform was a system of wedge-shaped characters whereas hieroglyphs was a system of symbols. Both incorporated what is called logosyllabic characters, characters that denoted not just things, but speech sounds too. This meant that both the reader and the writer had to work extra hard to interpret the meaning of each character. As a result, reading and writing cuneiform and hieroglyphs became so mentally stressful that its use was soon restricted to the intellectual elite who had both the time and brain power to read and write the respective system (Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains). Then around 750 BC, everything changed. It was around this time that the Greeks developed the very first phonetic alphabet with vowel sounds and consonant sounds. Also, through the analyzation of all of the sounds used in spoken language, the Greeks were the first to be able to

Starting in AD 800 and hitting its peak from 1050- 1200 AD, Cahokia covered six square miles with a population between 10,000 and 20,000 people (Jarus 1). During their 500 years, the Cahokians developed America’s first city and arguably the greatest civilization of its time, and then seemingly disappeared without a trace. But, despite Cahokia’s disappearance, a significant amount of history was left behind through earthen mounds, evolved social structures, advanced cultural practices, and Cahokia’s unexplained demise.

Cahokia is located near St. Louis and constructed numerous mounds. There were three major types of mounds found at Cahokia: platform, conical and ridge-top. One mound, called Monks Mound was enormous, it stood 100 ft. high and covered 16 acres. It is thought that this mound would have required many workers with mound experts supervising and took about 370,000 days to build (Fagan 2005: 472). Cahokia made improvements in agriculture through intercropping, and built a great plaza used for games and ceremonials that was the size of 35 football fields. Large public feasts were held at Cahokia. There are signs of people with a higher social status seen in where they lived and how they were buried. (Fagan 2005: 475). Mound 72 has the burial of a high-status male on a platform of 20,000 shell beads, with 800 arrowheads, copper and mica sheets, and 15 polished stone disks (Fagan 2005: 475). Cahokia had a large population of over 10,000 people and a three tier chiefdom. Moundville was occupied AD 1050 – 1450 and is located west-central Alabama. It had a large central plaza, a protective palisade, large mounds with numerous other earthworks, and over 3,000

Archaeologists are now able to come together with natives and learn about the past as a team, getting more insight into ceremonials, traditions, sacred ritueals, everyday workings, and lifestyles of native peoples. Respecting the grounds and artifacts of these indigenous people is respecting their heritage- our universal heritage. The unfolding of information allows archaeologists to gain perspective on the people and land before the white

Other historic and archeological facts can be disturbed by this as well so it is a major issue. An example of those who would be blamed for the buildings of the mounds in the eighteenth century would be the Vikings, people from the Lost City of Atlantis, Hindus, or the Lost Tribes of Israel when it actually turned out to be the Adena Native Americans who did this (O’Riley 315).Due to none of the other Native Americans in the area doing this type of work, it was always thought that an outside group had done this. However, in the nineteenth century, it became clear that the Native Americans had done this. An example of a piece that was hard for architects to determine who the piece was made by was the human effigy pipe (O’Riley 315-316). This pipe was dug up out of the mounds before they had realized that the Native Americans had built the mounds and it led architects to believing that one of the other groups had made the piece. They were eventually able to figure out that the Native Americans had made the piece

Then there’s Mound 34 where an excavation team found an Ancient Cahokian copper workshop, although they’re not quite sure how early this technology was discovered (sometimes-interesting). Although the Cahokians had all of these structures accomplished, they only controlled the surrounding farmlands there. Until 1050 AD, when a Cahokian chief decided to take over the smaller surrounding tribes. After that the Cahokians ruled much of the Midwest and the areas around the Mississippi river, and made their original city the capital of it all

Archaeology is the most common way to learn about the existence of humans. Many cultures have left written records behind providing information about life for them. The records left behind often tells about wealth, religion, hierarchy, important dates, property ownership and etc. Those records are often written from one person prospective and may not be all true. Understanding the life of past cultures that have no written records is what make archeology important. Archeology gives a voice to the voiceless with the hope of discovering their story.

Although writing in the New World did not originate among the Maya, they gave writing its greatest refinements.(Miller)

To begin, the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia introduced the first forms of written language-Cuneiform. The beginning of writing was an essential tool that transferred thoughts and speech into text. It was extremely important and allowed for the beginning of record keeping of all sorts. “At this point, writing was used only for record keeping, and thus only concrete words(nouns) such as “ox”,”grain” and “sheep” were needed. As society became more complex, the language evolved enabling signs to be used…and eventually abstract thoughts “(Newman 44). The world came to know a unique way of expressing thoughts and learned to convey messages through writing. From then on, records could be kept, history and stories could be recorded and abstract thinking could shine

• The study of the past based on recovering and identifying artifacts and making inferences about those who left these artifacts is called Archaeology .