Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi

The typical picture of Native American civilization comes from the movie and TV Westerns. We know even less about the native peoples of the east many of which were decimated by the diseases that European settlers brought or were driven out early on. I grew up hearing about Indian mounds in the Southeast but thought little of it. Evidently, I was not alone in that assessment since there has been little effort to do serious archaeological study and much of what has been done has been under pressure to make way for a road or neighborhood project. So, what if I told you that the first pyramids in the Americas were built not in Mexico or Peru but in the bayous of Louisiana and that the 3rd largest pyramid in the Americas was built just across the river from St. Louis, the great city of Cahokia? Are you surprised yet? How about that the city’s largest pyramid rose 130 feet above it surface, making it as tall as a 14-story building? As a pyramid, however, it was far broader than tall; its base covered 15 acres. That’s 25 million cubic meters of packed and hardened clay. Would it surprise you to know that the city’s population was close to 20,000 people? To put that in context, America’s largest colonial city, Philadelphia, didn’t reach that mark until around 1800. Cahokia was a small village around 1050, but it didn’t grow gradually as great cities normally do. Suddenly around that time, the population began to explode and a huge building project began on an extravagant scale even for modern times. The Great Plaza at the center of the city was 50 acres, and yes, you read that right. What happened? No one can know the details, but it is interesting that in the summer of 1054 CE, a star in the Milky Way galaxy (a relatively close neighbor in astronomical terms) went supernova. It was four times as bright as Venus and was visible both day and night for the next twenty-three days. It remained prominent in the night sky for the next two years. We know its remnants as the Crab Nebula. We do know that Cahokia was laid out along astronomical axes and even had several round “woodhenge” kinds of structures. The evidence of the huge pyramids was obvious to the first white explorers to the area but it was continually ignored or explained away. In the 1800s most whites could not possibly imagine that Native peoples had built the astonishing earthworks that they saw. Many speculated that there must have been a lost race of peoples who were wiped out by the savages. Many were destroyed or plowed over and later they were razed to build highways and suburbs with only a rushed archeological study just ahead of the bulldozers. Only in the last 2 decades of the 20th century were more concerted efforts made. What they found was that Cahokia was the center of a vast civilization that had influence on other peoples from the Dakotas to the southeast. The city itself was at least 3,200 acres of great pyramids, spacious plazas, thatched-roofed temples, houses, astronomical observatories and planned neighborhoods with more than 120 flat-topped pyramids or mounds. Yet, the city was abandoned by 1400, again, no one is sure why. Oh, and was there any relationship with the great pyramids and civilizations in Central America? That’s still hotly debated, but there were many similarities including large-scale human sacrifice and various types of ritual killings. This book is written for the average person but by an academic. It is concise and explains without using technical jargon. But, it does get a little slow at times. However, the content is so interesting that it is well worth reading.

I have not read this yet,I did however grow up in the area,the city that we call "Cahokia" was larger than London in its prime, the largest Mount,Monks Mound, larger the than Great Pyramids.... This civilization of people traded with the Mayans, and disappeared. The mounds that are left today,are but a rain drop in a ocean compared to what was destroyed with no regard or concern with the history permanently lost...stolen...THu

مادر هرچی ایرانیه سگ گایید تنظیمات گوشی منو عوض نکن بیناموس فیس بوک و اینستاگرام من کو من اجازه ندادم به‌گوگل به اس ام اس و کالم دسترسی داشته باشه خونه زندگی من کو کس مادرا من دارو نمیخوام‌خونه میخوام پول میخوام کارای کیریتون با صاحب کارای کیریتون و نمیخوام مادر سگ اگه آدم دوست و خونواده و وطن داشته باشه تو خیابون نمیخوابه بهش دارو بدن بیناموس تو خیابون دوای کیر و خایه بهش نمیدن موقع رانندگی بهش دارو نمیدن آدم دوست و خونواده دار یه شب بیرون میخوابه نه یه سال یه کار عوض میکنه نه صدتا