CAHOKIA

During its heyday, Cahokia was the largest and most influential settlement north of Mexico &was at the center of at least 50 communities in the environmentally rich American Bottom region of the Mississippi Valley. Situated at the center of a major trading network which linked cultures from Oaklahoma to the Atlantic coast, from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf Coast, it helped spread Mississippian culture across much of that vast area. Some 120 earthen mounds supporting civic buildings and the residences of Cahokia's elite were spread over more than five square miles.

• Lies in east St. Louis, Illinois
• Area first inhabited by peoples of the Woodland culture about A.D. 600 - 700
• Is the largest pre-European city north of Mexico - consisting of a complex of many mound groups [over 100 mounds] and residential areas contained in an area of about 13 square kilometers
• Originally there were more than 120 mounds, but the locations of only 109 have been recorded - many were altered or destroyed by modern farming and urban construction
• Mounds are made entirely of earth transported on people's backs in baskets to the construction site
• Most mounds show evidence of several construction stages
• There are two function types of mounds
  • Platform mounds [the most common], whose flat top served as a base for ceremonial buildings or residences of the elite
  • Burial mounds [both conical and ridgetop] - apparently used for burials of important people or to mark important locations [most Cahokians were probably buried in cemeteries, not in mounds.
• Estimates of the city's population at its peak [about A.D.1050-1250] range from 8,000 to more than 40,000, though most fall between 10,000 and 30,000
• City's center was a 200-acre "Sacred Precinct" where the ruling elite lived and were buried
• "Sacred Precinct" was dominated by 17 earthen, flat-topped mounds, including the immense mound called "Monks Mound" (see below).
• "Sacred Precinct" surrounded on 3 sides by a log stockade ten to 12 feet tall (Cahokia Creek defines fourth side) and extending for some 2 miles
  • The wallposts were set in trenches, with projecting guard towers every 70 feet
  • The stockade was constructed four times, each construction requiring nearly 20,000 logs
  • Believed to have been built for defense, but it would also have served as a social barrier, segregating the more sacred precinct and the elite who lived there
• Began to decline after A.D. 1250, perhaps as a result of exhausting its natural resources, &was virtually empty by 1400, though other sites flourished
• In the late 1600s the Cahokia people came to the area; it is from these later Native Americans that the current site name is derived
• Cahokia is a world heritage site with a major museum

Monks Mound
This great platform mound, composed of more than 22 million cubic feet of earth, was built in several stages between A.D. 900 - 1200. It is the largest mound north of Mexico and the largest prehistoric earthen construction in the Americas. It was most likely the focal point from which Cahokia's rulers carried out various political &religious rituals.

• Covers an area of 14 acres [316 meters long by 241 meters wide at the base - making its base larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Egypt] and rises in 4 terraces to a height of over 30 meters
• Contains over 600,000 cubic meters of earth
• Was constructed in stages by people carrying baskets filled with approx. 18 kilogram loads
• Atop the mound was a massive pole-framed temple [more than 100 feet long, 48 feet wide], its thatched roof possibly decorated with carved wooden animal figures covered with beads, feathers, and cloth
• Named for the French Trappist monks who lived nearby in the early 1800s

Burial mounds were important and contain vast quantities of materials. In one ridgetop mound lying outside the City's palisaded inner core archaeologists found a burial of a high-ranking male [about 45 years of age] who had been laid on a blanket of more than 20,000 marine shell disc beads and surrounded by caches of arrowheads, polished stone artifacts, mica, 4 sacrificed males [with their heads and hands missing] & a separate mass grave containing 53 females, possibly to serve him in the next life. Several other mass burials were also uncovered.

Woodhenge
Archaeologists have partially excavated the remains of four [possibly five] circular "sun calendars." Called Woodhenges [because of their presumed functional similarity to Stonehenge in England], they were built shortly before &sometime after A.D. 1000. Their precise function remains uncertain but were probably used to determine the changing seasons &certain ceremonial periods important to Cahokia's farming population. Also, when the sun rises at the equinox it comes up directly over the top of Monks Mound, a truly powerful sight, especially since the elite ruler's residence sat atop the mound and it would appear that the elite was giving birth to the sun.

• Several separate henges built over a two-century interval
• Fourth &last henge built shortly after A.D. 1000
• Earliest circle consisted of 24 upright posts, each set some distance into the ground
• Some of the post holes still contain remnants of the original cedar posts, stained with red paint
• Do not know exactly how circles were used
• Perhaps were used by observing the solstices &equinoxes
• Most spectacular sunrises occur at the equinoxes, when the sun comes up due east

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Last Updated 18 Feb 2000 by CSmith