Customer Reviews

Cahokia, the Great Native American Metropolis

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Over the past decade or so, Cahokia (located in Illinois just east of St. Louis) has emerged as the most extraordinary archaeological site in North America. In the 500 years between roughly 900 and 1400, Native Americans (no one can yet identify the group) built a great settlement, carefully planned, with temples, palaces, stockades, and other accoutrements that one would identify with a city, marked by tremendous earthen constructions -- the mounds that dominate the site today. The Cahokians' influence spread up and down the Mississippi valley, and the magnetism of their achievement drew people and wealth into their sphere of control.

The tale of the discovery, preservation, excavation, and interpretation of this magnificent site is told with verve and excitement in this collaboration between Biloine Whiting Young, a professional writer, and Melvin Fowler, one of the leading lights of Cahokian archaeology. They write in an accessible style but without sacrificing any of the complexities of the history and interpretation of Cahokia, and an abundant bibliography allows easy access to the technical literature on which the book rests. My advice: read this book, then hop in the easiest mode of transportation and get yourself to Collinsville, Illinois. You will come away from both with a new admiration for the achievements of our predecessors on this continent.

This book provides a wealth of detail about the great prehistoric city which we now call Cahokia. Written in layman's terms, the authors cover every aspect of the archeological investigations of the city. It is hard to believe that a large metropolis existed in mid-America a thousand years ago. In this book, Ms. Young and Dr. Fowler document the many studies made over the years that prove it did exist. And they do so in an easy to understand manner. This book is very easy to read.

Few today will have ever heard of Cohokia, the vast urban center once located on the banks of the Mississippi River. Cahokia is not only the largest archaeological site in North American, but one of the least well preserved or analyzed ancient civilizations in the world. Located in a present urban area near St. Louis, the failure to study and catalog this site until the past few years is a stunning example of modern ignorance and mismanagment. This study is the best single volume work on the subject of Cahokia.

That being said, the limitations of this volume are many. It is apparent that Professor Fowler's research is essentially presented by Young, a non-specialist writer. Unfortunately, the writing is uneven and not particularly memorable. There is also a dearth of photographs and diagrams. Finally, I was dissatisfied with the lack of discussion of the context of the Cahokia culture with the other prehistorical peoples of North and Central America.

My advice is to get "Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians" by Pauketat, which is a much better book, with many more illustrations, and concerns itself with the archaeology and culture of Cahokia. This book "Cahokia the Great Native American Metropolis" is great if you want to learn much more about the interactions between the archeologists themselves, and not much about the culture of the Cahokia people and the archaeological site. I much prefer to spend my valuable time reading about the culture and the site, rather than the petty squabbles between the archaeolgists. Buy the book by Pauketat, not this book.