Examining both the history of Cahokia and the historic myths that were created to explain it reveals the troubling role that early archaeologists played in diminishing, or even eradicating, the . Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. World History Encyclopedia, 27 Apr 2021. The mysterious disappearance of the people of Cahokia is still discussed by some writers and video producers in the present day. Please support World History Encyclopedia. (LIA; 1300-1800 CE), a period when much of the world had cooler weather. At its height, based on artifacts excavated, the city traded as far north as present-day Canada and as far south as Mexico as well as to the east and west. "Feeding Cahokia" sets the record straight . This second theory has been challenged, however, in that there is no evidence of enslaved peoples at the site. . This is around the same time that the city's great earthwork pyramids started rising. Today it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and State Historic Site. It fit the available data and made logical sense, and the archaeological community largely embraced it as a possibleor even likelycontributor to Cahokias decline. Grave Goods: the items placed in a burial after someone dies, Nitrogen Isotopes: types of nitrogen atoms that exist in nature and are present in different amounts in foods, Natchez People: a Native American tribe with a way of life similar to Mississippian culture, "Cahokia Not As Male-Dominated As Previously Thought, New Archaeology Shows" from History Things, Office of Resources for International and Area Studies1995 University Ave, Room 520DBerkeley, CA 94720-2318(510) [email protected], Cahokia is an archaeological site in Illinois that was built and occupied by Native Americans from about 1000-1400 CE. At the time of European contact with the Illini, the peoples were located in what would later be organized as the states of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. But our present environmental crisis might be inclining us to see environmental crises in every crevice of humanitys past, Rankin says, whether they were actually there or not. Cahokians cut a lot of treesthousands of them were used to build what archaeologists believe were defensive fortificationsbut that doesnt mean they were treating them as fungible goods, or harvesting them in unsustainable ways, the way European-Americans often did. Nature dictated that the settlement rise near the confluence of the Missouri, Illinois and Mississippi rivers. People have lived in the Cahokia region for thousands of years, but around 1000 CE local people and immigrants from other parts of the continent/other parts of the Mississippi River Valley began to gather there in large numbers. When the mounds of Cahokia were first noted by Europeans in the 19th century, they were regarded as natural formations by some and the work of various European or Asiatic peoples by others. As an archaeologist, Ive been able to travel to Egypt, Jordan, and Vietnam, working on excavations to find artifacts and other clues that tell us about life in the past. Doctoral student A.J. Sometimes these stories. People were buried in special ways because of their religious beliefs and some people were more powerful than others, having fancier grave goods and the power of life and death over commoners. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from "Cahokia," by . We do not know why people chose to come to Cahokia, but it is located at an important confluence of the Mississippi River where the valley is wide and can hold a lot of people and farms. Over time, the heaving will destroy whatever is built on top of it. STDs are at a shocking high. Cahokia: North America's First City | Live Science All living things belonged to a complex matrix that was simultaneously spiritual and material. The Chinese also irrigated the land in the forest. The dry spell wouldn't break for up to 500 more years, according to the Lake Martin calcite sediments. White Settlers Buried the Truth About the Midwest's Mysterious Mound In a study published recently in the journal Geoarchaeology,Caitlin Rankin of the University of Illinois not only argues that the deforestation hypothesis is wrong, but also questions the very premise that Cahokia may have caused its own undoing with damaging environmental practices. By 1150 CE, people started to leave Cahokia. It is important to note that the Cahokia area was home to a later Native American village and multiple Native American groups visit and use the site today; its abandonment was not the end of Native Americans at Cahokia. It is most likely that Cahokia faced societal and environmental problems at the same time (just like the US is doing now!). Simpson, Linda. A freelance writer and former part-time Professor of Philosophy at Marist College, New York, Joshua J. The American Bottom clay, known as smectite clay, is especially prone to swelling: its volume can increase by a factor of eight. The Natchez had a similar way of life to people at Cahokia. After Monks Mound was completed, or while it was ongoing (as it is thought to have been built in stages), other mounds were constructed as well as temples such as the one which once topped Monks Mound. Axolotls and capybaras are TikTok famousis that a problem? World History Encyclopedia. 30 Apr 2023. The modern-day designation Mississippian Culture refers to the Native American people who inhabited the Mississippi River Valley, Ohio River Valley, and Tennessee River Valley, primarily, but were spread out in separate communities all the way down to present-day Louisiana as well as points north and east. But just 200 years later, the once-thriving civilization had all but vanished . The most common type, or isotope, of nitrogen is nitrogen-14; the less common type, nitrogen-15 has one more neutron and so it is a little heavier. About a 15-minute drive east of St. Louis is a complex of earthen mounds that once supported a prehistoric city of thousands. From an engineering standpoint, clay should never be selected as the bearing material for a big earthen monument. These racist views led some to bizarre explanations, including giants, Vikings, or Atlanteans. Just because this is how we are, doesnt mean this is how everyone was or is.. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. Environmental problems could have been drought, floods, or environmental degradation, when people abuse their environment. 2 hours of sleep? How do we reverse the trend? There are 120 moundsthe largest, Monks Mound, covers 17 acres. He knew at the time he presented his hypothesis that it was just a reasonable attempt to make sense of a mystery. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/cahokia/. An earthquake at some point in the 13th century toppled buildings and, at the same time, overpopulation led to unsanitary conditions and the spread of disease. There are two main ideas for how politics at Cahokia worked: a single, powerful leader, like a president or shared power between multiple leaders, like senators. Pleasant said, the amount of land used remained stable. Dr. Mt. Nor can the water evaporate; the clay layers atop the sand press down and prevent air from coming in. Recent excavations at Cahokia led by Caitlin Rankin, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, show that there is no evidence at the site of human-caused erosion or flooding in the city. As food resources dwindled in the face of an unforgiving, centuries-long drought, Bird thinks the Mississippians' political atmosphere began destabilizing. As it grew, Cahokia absorbed much of the rural population, transforming their labor from agriculture to public works. The posts were about 20 feet high, made from a special wood called red cedar. People had free time too, and for fun would play games like. "That comes at right around 950 and that's around the time the population at Cahokia explodes," Bird says. The Eastern Woodland peoples, in . Climate change did not destroy Cahokia, in fact people stayed at the site for another 200 years. A higher proportion of oxygen 18, a heavier isotope of the element, suggests greater rains, providing researchers with a year-by-year record of rainfall reaching back hundreds of years. (MCO), a period when weather in much of the world was stable and warm from about 900-1200 CE. The importance of domesticated crops for Mississippian peoples is giant mounds. . Mound 72 shows us the importance of religion and power at Cahokia. My name is AJ and Ive been an archaeologist for about 10 years. Cahokia is a modern-day historical park in Collinsville, Illinois, enclosing the site of the largest pre-Columbian city on the continent of North America. Instead, he points to other social and political factors that could have driven the rise or fall of Mississippian cultures. (another word for corn) that was smaller than the corn you see in stores today. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Archaeology is not like physics, where you can set up controlled experiments and get the answers youre looking for, Rankin says. Cahokia is an archaeological site in Illinois that was built and occupied by Native Americans from about 1000-1400 CE. Several men and women were buried next to Birdman and his special grave goods, which may mean that these people were his family members or important members of society. Birdman was probably really important and powerful because he was buried with so many nice things, similar to King Tuts tomb in Egypt. The Americas | US History I (OS Collection) - Lumen Learning Cahokia had population up to 20,000 and contained more than 100 mounds. As Cahokia collapsed, this population first reoccupied . Although many people did not believe these farfetched ideas, they fed into a common belief in the 1800s that Native American people were inferior and undeserving of their land. Around A.D. 1200, weather patterns across North America shifted, and a transcontinental jet stream that once pulled life-giving rains from the Gulf of Mexico began funneling cold air from the bone-dry Arctic. Cahokia became so notable at this time that other Mississippian chiefdoms may have begun forking off or springing up from its success, says Pauketat. Water rises through the clay to meet it, but cannot proceed further because the sand is too loose for further capillary action. Then, the fall of Cahokia might have had a domino effect on other Mississippian city-states that depended culturally and politically on Cahokia, he adds. The story of Cahokia has mystified archaeologists ever since they laid eyes on its earthen moundsscores of them, including a 10-story platform mound that until 1867 was the tallest manmade structure in the United States. The Mysterious Pre-Columbian Settlement of Cahokia Just as people today move to new places when their hometown isnt working out for them, many people who lived at Cahokia moved to other parts of the Mississippian territory to join or start new settlements. The religious authorities are thought to have sent out word that they were going to build a great mound and, according to one view, people from many different regions came to participate; according to another, the central authority conscripted workers from other communities as forced labor. While heavy plow techniques quickly exhausted soil and led to the clearing of forests for new farmland, hand tool-wielding Cahokians managed their rich landscape carefully. Its how theyre managing and exploiting resources., (In this episode of our podcastOverheard, we chat with an anthropologist working to protect the remaining burial mounds and sacred shrines of Cahokia so that the descendants of the ancient city's founders can keep its legacy alive. The people who built Cahokia, for instance, had a choice spot for city building, he says. You might have heard of Stonehenge in England, but have you heard of Woodhenge? But archaeology is confirming that Persia's engineering triumph was real. Cahokia, across the Mississippi from present-day St. Louis, was a city of roughly 20,000 people at its peak in the 1100s, but was largely abandoned by 1350. For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. I used to think that you had to go far away to find ancient ruins like pyramids, but Cahokia has tons of them with over 100 remaining today. We do not know why people chose to come to Cahokia, but it is located at an important confluence of the Mississippi River where the valley is wide and can hold a lot of people and farms. French missionaries built two missions as part of their proselytizing of the Cahokia: the Tamaroa/Cahokia mission in 1699 CE and the River LAbb mission in 1735 CE. As noted, Cahokia today is a UNESCO World Heritage Site open to the public with an interpretive center and museum, walkways and stairs between and on the mounds, and events held to commemorate, honor, and teach the history of the people who once lived there. Drying, it shrinks back to its original dimensions. The largest mound covered fifteen acres. Once found near present-day St. Louis in Illinois, Cahokia suddenly declined 600 years ago, and no one knows why. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. 1 by Alan Taylor Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. A thousand years ago, a city rose on the banks of the Mississippi River, near what eventually became the city of St. Louis. Its an important reminder of how climate change affected people in the past and how we can learn from that to help us fight climate change today. Thats a Western mentality of resource exploitationsqueeze everything out of it that you can. "We switch to profound drought at A.D. 1350," Bird says. Archeologists call their way of life the Mississippian culture and Cahokia was the largest and most important Mississippian site ever built. Isotopes in bone from burials (see Religion, Power and Sacrifice section for more information) tells us that more powerful people at Cahokia ate more meat and probably had a healthier diet than commoners. By the 1400s, Cahokia had been abandoned due to floods, droughts, resource scarcity and other drivers of depopulation. Perhaps the prime location and not just the amount of rain helped the city come to prominence, he says. The earliest mound dated thus far is the Ouachita Mound in Louisiana which was built over 5,400 years ago. Cahokia people - Wikipedia (296-298). . Near the end of the MCO the climate around Cahokia started to change: a huge Mississippi River flood happened around 1150 CE and long droughts hit the area from 1150-1250 CE. She discovered something she hadnt been expecting to find: clear evidence that there had been no recurrent flooding of the sort predicted by the wood-overuse hypothesis. Its more like a natural progression as people slowly ebb out of an urban environment that stops meeting their needs. In their minds, spiritual power was neither singular nor transcendent, but diverse and ubiquitous. Flooding of the Mississippi River today affects many people and causes billions of dollars in damage; it is likely that the flood around 1150 CE destroyed farms and possibly houses in the low-lying areas of Cahokia. Most likely, there was one leader or group that was more important than others, but their power was not total. For comparison, it was not until the late 1700s that American cities like New York City and Philadelphia had more people than Cahokia. The posts were about 20 feet high, made from a special wood called red cedar. Today, it is home to St. Louis, one of the largest cities in the Midwestern United States. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC.