THE STOCKADE
The stockade is one of the principal attractions of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, and only one of thethings about Cahokia on which theories and assumptions diverge. This enormous two-mile-long palisade, which was discovered in excavations in 1966, is described as "encircling the most important sacred area of Cahokia which includes Monk's Mound, the plaza to the south and several smaller mound groups". Scientists assume this wall to have been started in the time between 900 BP and A.D. 1100 and largely completed by about 1150, although additions were made up to 1250.
The palisade was built from foot-thick
trunks of 20,000 oak and hickory trees and measured about two miles, with a
height of ten to 12 feet tall and watch towers placed approximately every
seventy feet. (Here, again, numbers vary to a large extent.
http://www.archaeology.org/9805/newsbriefs/cahokia.html even speaks of a height of 100 feet.) “The stockade
walls may have been covered with clay, as well, to protect them from fire and
moisture.” (http://medicine.wustl.edu/~mckinney/cahokia/stockade.html 19.07.2001)
Within
the next 200 years the stockade was rebuilt three times, “each time at a cost
of 20,000 trees and 130,000 work-hours. Cahokia's forests were being exhausted
and so, too, were its people.” (Lewis Lord in
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990816/cahokia.htm
19.07.2001)
Its purpose is not exactly known and in
general, there are two possible explanations. One of them is that that it
functioned as a social barrier, a separation between the most sacred, holy
area, a 200-acre Sacred Precinct where the ruling elite lived and were buried,
and the rest of the settlement. “Such enclosures are common features of
religious architecture and in general are used to delimit areas of sacred
space.” (http://www.smcm.edu/academics/aldiv/art/webcourses/arth100/anchoring/cahokia/anchoring.htm 20.07.2001)
However, most scientists believe - or
at least most of the articles make us believe that this is the generally
accepted theory - that it served primarily as a defensive structure and there
are several reasons to regard this as the more plausible explanation:
the great height of the wall; the presence of evenly
spaced bastions, projections from which archers could shoot arrows; and
evidence that portions of the wall were hurriedly built, cutting through
residential areas, as if danger was imminent. (http://medicine.wustl.edu/~mckinney/cahokia/stockade.html
19.07.2001)
But
since there is no evidence of invasion at Cahokia, some people question the
purpose of the Stockade as such. Or they find themselves asking questions which
lead us to the first mentioned assumption, namely that Cahokia was not that
much of a Garden Eden as most people want to make us believe. In fact, there is
a high chance that this stockade, indeed, may have functioned as a social
barrier. Some of the articles studied point that out by referring to the
Cahokian way of living (Lifestyle).
In
any way, some of the articles do not refrain from asking questions which may
let us spend a second thought about either of the theories.
River Web,
for instance, argues the following way:
The
most reasonable interpretation of the wall which once ringed Cahokia seems to
be that it represents a defensive fortification, particularly given the
occurrence of similar, albeit smaller, structures at other Mississippian sites.
Nevertheless, it has also been suggested that the wall was not strictly a
defensive structure, but was intended to demarcate the central, most religious
and elite part of central Cahokia. Why a wall intended to create a social
barrier around the center of Cahokia would also have bastions is unclear. (http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/RiverWeb/Projects/Ambot/prehistory/mississippian/top.html 09.10.2001)
No
matter whether the stockade funtioned as a social barrier or was meant as a
defensive structure, several of the articles point out that other evidence
strenghtens the assumption that violence existed in Cahokia (HISTORY.htm):
Though
rich soil may have been plentiful in the Mississippi Valley, prehistoric people
still competed for the best land, induced, perhaps, by their ever-increasing
numbers. War seems to have become a more frequent means of enforcing political
control as time went on. Villages were enclosed in wooden palisade walls, and
the study of artifacts shows an increase in martial symbolism. Signs of
violence on human remains underscore this development. (http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/RiverWeb/Projects/Ambot/prehistory/mississippian/top.html
09.10.2001)
Of particular note are the following:
1.
The wall cut through
the heart of a residential area.
2.
Bastions were
regularly spaced along the wall.
3.
Wall construction
consisted of digging a trench, placing large logs vertically in the trench,
lashing the timbers together, and finally burying the logs base.
(http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/RiverWeb/Projects/Ambot/prehistory/mississippian/top.html
09.10.2001)