HISTORY

The site of Cahokia is named after the Cahokia Indians whom French explorers found living in this area in the 1600s.

However, many sites stress the fact that these people did not leave a written record and consequently, no one knows the true name of the Indians living in the city of Cahokia.

To this day, no one knows the Cahokians' ethnicity, what language they spoke, what songs they sang or even what they called themselves. The name "Cahokia" is a misnomer. It comes from the name of a sub-tribe of the Illini who didn't reach the area until the 1600s, coming from the East. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/march/12/cahokia.htm  20.07.2001)

Thus, a lot of information we have about this ancient city is, more or less, based on assumptions.

However, scientists seem to be able to pin the Cahokian era down to the period between 900-1300 A.D. The era covered here is usually referred to as the Mississippian Period or Third Moundbuilding Epoch, and it “refers to Cahokia as well as the Moundbuilding settlements located in the fertile river valleys of the Southeast.” (http://www.smcm.edu/academics/aldiv/art/webcourses/arth100/anchoring/cahokia/cah_home.htm 20.07.2001)

At any rate, Cahokians are considered perhaps the earliest of a people known to anthropologists as "Mississippian"–Indians of the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast who formed villages beside rivers, raised corn, built temple mounds, and worshiped the sun. (see Lewis Lord  in : http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990816/cahokia.htm 19.07.2001) Many sites on the Internet regard this people as the “largest and most sophisticated prehistoric Native American society north of Mexico” (http://www.allsands.com/History/Places/indiansmoundbui_­ib_gn.htm 19.07.2001); some even consider it as one of the great urban centers of the world at that time (have a look at http://www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu/archaeology/sites/northamerica/cacity.html  23.07.2001), covering roughly six square miles. They praise the settlement of Cahokia, which is located on the Mississippi River near the modern city of East St. Louis, Illinois, as the time’s largest religious and political center in the North American Southeast, as well as a major center of business and the arts. “It shared cultural and economic ties with numerous settlements located throughout the region and maintained trade networks that extended throughout North America.” (http://www.smcm.edu/academics/aldiv/art/webcourses/arth100/anchoring/cahokia/cah_home.htm 20.07.2001)

 

At its zenith, A.D. 1050-1150, when few settlements had even 400 or 500 residents, “population estimates range from 8000 to 40,000 inhabitants, though the most constant figure is 20,000” (http://www.allsands.com/History/Places/indiansmoundbui_­ib_gn.htm19.07.2001), which is, as Lewis Lord points out, “roughly the number in contemporary London.” (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990816/cahokia.htm 19.07.2001)

 

Generally, most sites seem to use Cahokia as America’s figurehead in terms of culture and civilization. Preferably, it is described as “[being] the largest city in America until 1800 when Philadelphia was created” (http://members.fortunecity.com/allnutt/transamerica/ta2000/megcass/cahokia.html), having rivaled London in size and being “much larger than Paris at the time, one of Europe's major cities” (http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/up/upi.html 19.07.2001)”, in order to stress its importance and its equality and equivalence to the European counterparts. Furthermore, Cahokia is compared to other cities of the 19th and 20th centuries, for instance when Lewis Lord mentions its

[…] specialized labor force, an organized government, public construction projects, and a trade network that extended the length of the Mississippi River and reached east to the Atlantic and west to Oklahoma and Nebraska (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990816/cahokia.htm 19.07.2001)

In their article Cahokia, the Great Native American Metropolis, Biloine Whiting Young and Melvin L. Fowler even think that this “precisely planned community with a fortified central city and surrounding suburbs, was designed as a reflection of the Cahokian's concept of the cosmos”. (http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f99/young.html 20.07.2001)

 

Apparently, the construction of the city and the resulting organization of its government were unique for the America of its time (therefore, everyone is so eager to stress that at least one city was comparable to European standards).

Cahokia formed a diamond shape with Monks Mound at its center. This layout suggests that it was a planned city and due to several articles (all of them seem to have been using the same source of information), the houses were arranged in rows and around an open plaza, a very large area where the people built their temple, had the most elite neighborhoods and other important public buildings. This plaza, where the Cahokians held their religious ceremonies and played religious games, was surrounded by a stockade or palisade of tall timbers.

The main agricultural fields lay outside the city. Cahokia was a planned city with elaborate public buildings and perhaps elite residences at its core. The construction of these features required an organized cooperative labor force as well as organized leadership. Astronomical, mathematical and engineering knowledge also appear to be necessary skills in the planning and construction of the site.” (http://www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu/archaeology/sites/northamerica/cahokia.html  23.07.2001)

In general, the

site of Cahokia is an enormous complex of mounds, public and private residences, and various calendrical and religious structures that extend over an area exceeding 2000 acres. The central section of the settlement was enclosed by a large wooden palisade that surrounded the main platform mound as well as the large plaza to its south. (http://www.smcm.edu/academics/aldiv/art/webcourses/arth100/anchoring/cahokia/mounds/htm 20.07.2001)

 

Cahokia had a corn-based economy thanks to the fertile Mississippi, “providing a reliable food source all year, populations rose and villages grew. About 1000 A.D., Cahokia underwent a population explosion.“ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/march/12/cahokia.htm  20.07.2001)

However, since we do not have any written record from the Cahokians, the city is still wrapped up in a network of mysteries which won’t be revealed too soon, since the inhabitants disappeared with leaving only little evidence as to where they went and why. Occasionally, the site is even considered to be “one of the best-kept archaeological secrets in the country.“ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/march/12/cahokia.htm 20.07.2001)