Cahokia

The largest and most impressive town of the Middle Mississippi Culture, on the Illinois bank of the river near East St. Louis. Cahokia Mounds State Historic and World Heritage Site, the location of this large prehistoric Indian city, is to the northeast. It constituted probably the largest pre-Columbian (c AD 900-1300) community north of Mexico in the Mississippi floodplain. The scale of public works in the culture can be estimated from remains of the largest of the Mississippi earthworks, Monk's Mound near Cahokia, which measures 1,000 feet (300 m) long, 700 feet (200 m) wide, and 100 feet (30 m) high - which is larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The magnitude of such public works and the distribution of temples suggest a dominant religious cult and a series of priest-rulers who commanded the services of a large population and the establishment of artist-craftsman guilds. In addition to large-scale construction, there is evidence of long-distance trade, elaborate ceremonial activity, and possibly astronomical observation. There is evidence of around 10,000-38,000 inhabitants and a town of warehouses and workshops, residential housing arranged along a grid of streets, and open plazas and 100 manmade mounds (burial and platform types). One of the smaller mounds contained rich burials, including a corpse was wrapped in a robe sewn with more than 12,000 shell beads; caches of arrowheads, polished stone, and mica; and his retainers - 6 men at his side and 53 women in a mass grave nearby. Artifacts include flint hoes, shell and limestone-tempered pottery, and engraved stone tablets sometimes etched with the motifs of the Southern Cult.

Located in an alluvial valley near East St Louis, Illinois, USA, Cahokia is easily the most spectacular of the Mississippian centres. The site is 15-20 square kilometres in area, and at its height (1050-1250) had a population estimated variously between 10,000 and 38,000. It includes more than 100 man-made mounds (both burial and platform types) built over the period 700-1600 (see Temple Mound Period). Monk’s Mound, the largest of these, measures 330 metres long by 218 metres wide and reaches a maximum height of 30 metres. As is typical of flat-topped temple mounds, it served as base upon which civic buildings were erected. Its four terraces underwent at least seven periods of reconstruction, during each of which the surmounting buildings were completely razed. Portions of a wall or palisade have already been uncovered and indications are that it probably enclosed some 120 hectares including Monk’s and 16 other large mounds. In addition to construction on a grand scale, evidence of long-distance trade, elaborate ceremonial activity and possibly astronomical observation indicate a centre of notable social complexity. Artefacts include flint hoes (the characteristic Mississippian artefact), shell and limestone-tempered pottery, and engraved stone tablets sometimes etched with the motifs of the Southern Cult.