Posted on 04/08/2008 7:37:25 AM PDT by blam
Much still to be learned about Cahokia Mounds
By ELIZABETH DONALD, AP
COLLINSVILLE, Ill. (Map, News) - It's so much a part of the landscape that metro-east residents often don't even notice it, except when a visiting relative notices: "Look, there's the mound."
Rising from what once was an endless grass sea parted by the Mississippi River, Monks Mound isn't even named after the Native American Indians who built it centuries ago, but the Trappist monks who lived there for only five years in the 19th century.
No one knows what the long-vanished people who built the mounds called themselves, much less what they named their terraced mound. Archaeologists call them the Mississippians, and their lives continue to be a mystery whose clues are buried in the mounds scattered throughout the metro-east and far beyond.
During the last three decades, the main part of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site - what once was "downtown" for the largest prehistoric settlement on the continent - has been dubbed a World Heritage Site and turned into a tourist attraction and center for prehistoric research.
In 1980, Bill Iseminger and other archaeologists drew up a plan to acquire land, build an interpretive center and learn what they could about the people who lived there. In 28 years, Iseminger has seen just about everything on that plan come to pass. Now, as site manager, he is working on a plan for the next three decades.
The new plan will focus on revamped exhibits and expansion for the interpretive center, helping the public to learn more about Cahokia and provide larger space for temporary exhibits. The site also will continue to add surrounding property as it can afford to do so from willing sellers, Iseminger said. "We've got more people approaching us than we have money to spend," he said.
There have been nearly three decades of research, testing and excavations for Iseminger, who has worked with generations of students and a number of archaeologists summer after summer as they try to find out more about the Mississippians, their culture and what ultimately happened to them.
"It's the largest archaeological site in America, so it's kept my interest all these years," Iseminger said. "There is so much we don't know, a lot of questions we have about what happened here."
The earliest campsites at Cahokia have been dated to 700 B.C., but it was nearly 1,400 years later before agriculture and mound-building began. Monks Mound was built over a 300-year period, from 900 to 1200. Woodhenge, a circular calendar built of wooden posts, was first built in 1000, and by 1250, Cahokia was larger than London with 20,000 people.
Julie Holt, chairwoman of the anthropology department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, said visiting Cahokia at that time would have been "like going to New York City." In fact, it would be the early 1800s before another North American city surpassed Cahokia's population, when Philadelphia reached 20,000 people. The second-largest site, in Alabama, would fit entirely within Cahokia's "downtown" area.
"There was nothing like it in U.S. history until well past the colonial period," Holt said. SIUE has sent countless archaeology classes to the site over the decades to assist in the summertime digs on the mounds, the living areas and the path of the palisade wall constructed more than 1,000 years ago.
GGG Ping
Thanks for posting. Interesting. Ping.
I grew up around there and still visit whenever I get to St. Louis. It’s well worth the time for anyone who is interested in archaelogy and history, or who just wants to walk the quiet grounds. It’s come a long way from the days when it had only a small museum and the grounds were used mainly for picnics.
Zelph?
Thanks, Blam- It has a great museum and interpretive area.
Thanks, blam! Great find, as always.
Grew up near Serpent Mound in Ohio. It’s really neat, too.
...I love this stuff and spend a great Saturday a couple weeks ago walking two sites in South Carolina....I’m strictly a surface hunter but every time I pick up a projectile point I feel like Indiana Jones....
I often thought that the Indians that remained here when the settlers came were the remnants of a much bigger civ. They had to be—if the descriptions of Kentucky as a dark and bloody ground were accurate, and we have no reason to think they weren’t, where did all the people that fought the battle come from? Where did they go? What happened to all the bodies? Nobody goes to all the trouble to build mounds like that for no reason. They would have been much to busy just surviving to play in the dirt, and some of the mounds are exquisite. And, the full effect is only seen from the air. HMMMM.... Each question snowballs into more questions. Love it!
Birdman Tablet Discovered during Excavations
at the East Lobe of Monks Mound [1971]
Cahokia Mounds Museum Society | subsequent to 1971
Posted on 03/16/2006 9:46:13 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1597546/posts
Swansea woman donates birdman tablet to Mounds[Illinois]
News-Democrat | 03 April 2007 | TERI MADDOX
Posted on 04/07/2007 8:00:18 AM PDT by Dacb
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1813601/posts
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Thanks Blam. |
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I agree. I came across this most amazing reference from the Governor of New York, given in 1812, about the ancient civilizations that were formerly in the North Eastern US.
“Previous to the occupancy of this region by the progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was inhabited by a race of men much more populous and more advanced in civilization. Who they were, whence they came and whither they went, have been themes of speculation by learned antiquarians, who have failed to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. ...Why have we no history of such a nation as must have inhabited this part of the world? Probably if a knowledge of these ancient people is ever obtained, it will be derived from inscriptions on stone or metals, which have withstood the rust of time.” 1812, Governor De Witt Clinton
Here's a small snippet, the whole chapter is great, the same way. The link follows.
“We are surrounded by evidence that a race preceded the present Indians, farther advanced in civilizations and the arts, and far more numerous. Here and there upon the brow of hills, at the head of ravines, are their fortifications, their location selected with skill and adapted to refuge, subsistence and defense. Uprooted trees of the forest that are the growth of many centuries, expose their molding remains, the uncovered mounds with masses of their skeletons promiscuously heaped one on top of the other, as if they were the gathered and hurriedly entombed dead of well contested battlefields. In our villages, upon our hillsides, the plow and the spade discover their rude implements adapted to war, the chase and domestic use. All these unintelligible witnesses, bring but unsatisfactory knowledge of races that have preceded us.
Although not confined to this region, there is perhaps no portion of the United States where ancient relics are more numerous. Commencing near Oswego River, they extended westwardly over all the western counties of the state. We clear away our forests and speak familiarly of subduing the “Virgin soil,” and yet the plow up turns the skulls of those whose history is lost. Then as now the western portion of New York state had attractions and inducements to make it a favorite residence, for this ancient people, assailed from the north and east, made this their refuge in a war of extermination, fortified the commanding eminences, met the shock of a final issue, were subject to its adverse results. The forest invited the chase, the rivers and lakes local commerce and fishing, and the fertile soil for agriculture. The evidence that this was one, at least of their final battlefields, predominate. They are the fortifications, entrenchments and warlike instruments of an extinct race. That here was a war of extermination, we may well conclude, from masses of human skeletons we find indiscriminately thrown together, indicating a common and simultaneous sepulcher from which age, infancy, sex and no condition, was exempt.
This kind of stuff really fascinates me.
I have been to Cahokia as a kid and love all kinds of pre-history North American lore and facts.
I am very lucky to live an easy drive away from three major mound sites. Etowah, Ocmulgee and the one down by Columbus whose name escapes me. Many smaller mounds here and there as well. Rock Eagle is a whole ‘nother thing and is fantastic.
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