Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site preserves the remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric Indian civilization north of Mexico, circa A.D. 900-1300. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, Cahokia is noted for its important role in the prehistory of North America. This book, written for a general audience, introduces the reader to this ancient metropolis, with its towering 100 foot-high Monks Mound and American Woodhenge sun calendar. This is the astounding story of an advanced Indian culture in North America that thrived and then declined before European contact.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Claudia Gellman Mink began her association with Cahokia Mounds in the early 1970s. During her ten years as an educator and curator at the St. Louis Museum of Science and Natural History, she researched and designed exhibits for both her institution and for Cahokia Mounds Interpretive Center. She also spent a summer digging at a Cahokia archaeological site.
Ms. Mink holds a B.A. degree in Anthropology from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She is a lifelong resident of the St. Louis area.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A thousand years ago, a civilization more sophisticated and powerful than any other in the Western Hemisphere north of Mexico grew up and flourished in the rich Mississippi River bottom land of southwestern Illinois and environs.
These native American peoples -- who are called MISSISSIPPIANS by archaeologists -- supported a population as large as 20,000 at their zenith with a wide-scale agricultural economy based primarily on the cultivation of corn. The crops they grew combined with the regions bountiful wildlife and indigenous plants to form a stable, year-round food supply. Such stability and ties to the land gave rise to the formation of permanent settlements that grew into an extensive network of communities with a regional center of metropolitan proportions.
The sedentary lifestyle of the Mississippians made possible other hallmarks of advanced civilization: widespread commerce; stratified social, political, and religious organization; specialized and refined crafts; and monumental architecture, here in the form of earthen mounds covering up to 14 acres and rising as high as 100 feet.
Their extraordinary success continued for five centuries until, for reasons still unknown, the sun set on the Mississippians as it had on the great Mayan, Egyptian and Mesopotamian people before them. Finally, when the agencies of the state of Illinois carried out the first scientific investigations of the area in the 1920s, the true extent of this vibrant culture began to emerge.
The remnants of the Mississippian's central city -- now known as Cahokia for the Indians who lived nearby in the late 1600s -- are preserved within the 2200-acre tract that is the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Located just eight miles east of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, near Collinsville, Illinois, Cahokia was designated a World Heritage Site in 1982 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization for its vital contribution to the understanding of North American prehistory.
This book, and the Cahokia Mounds Interpretive Center, attempt to weave as rich a tapestry as possible of life at Cahokia from approximately A.D. 800 to A.D. 1300. Current thinking is based on 70 years of archaeological research and the journals of 16th through 18th century European adventurers who traveled among tribes of what is now the southeastern United States. Scholars believe that much of what the chroniclers noted were Mississippian traditions that survived long after Cahokia's decline. The arrival of Europeans on this continent marks the division between prehistoric and historic times in the study of North American cultures.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cahokia: City of the Sun,
This review is from: Cahokia: City of the Sun : Prehistoric Urban Center in the American Bottom (Paperback)
This book is an excellent introduction to the history and archaeology of the Cahokia acropolis. Compact and readable, and accessible to both young and old, Cahokia: City of the Sun is the perfect book for those interested in getting started in the study of Cahokia, or for those who just want to know a little more about the ancient history of the American Midwest.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
North America's medieval metropolis...,
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This review is from: Cahokia: City of the Sun : Prehistoric Urban Center in the American Bottom (Paperback)
North America had medieval cities. Big ones. One enormous metropolis in particular dominated cultural and economic life up and down the Mississippi River between 800 AD and 1400 AD. The city now goes by the name Cahokia, after a tribe that occupied the area following the european influx. No known records reveal its original name, nor the names of its some 15,000 people. In fact, no written or verbal records about this place made it down to the present day. None whatsoever. Not even the purported ancestors of its inhabitants had or have anything to say about it. Somehow the city vanished from memory. But a ciy it was, at least according to archaeology. And it remained the largest North American city on record until 1800.
"Cahokia: City of the Sun" provides the best general introduction to this extremely important North American landmark and UNESCO World Heritage site. Filled with color photos and maps it helps bring the shadowy Cahokia to life. Eight chapters cover its culture, social hierarchy, origins, buildings, and life. And all in accessible nontechnical language. Not only that, it includes an introductory chapter on archaeology and the methods used to infer the past from artifacts. An important chapter, because most of what we know about the site comes from excavations or inferences from other native cultures. No one knows why Cahokia collapsed. The dominant theories include political strife, climate change, and depletion of natural resources. Though the Cahokian's culture disappeared from memory, they nonetheless left impressive cultural artifacts in the form of earthen mounds. Many of these still stand near Collingsville, Illinois. The largest, Monks Mound, stands some 130 feet high and offers an impressive view of downtown St. Louis. Many smaller mounds surround this mammoth structure and present a good idea of Cahokia's previous size. The site deserves its reputation as a city. And, apart from the absence of writing, Cahokia also deserves to be called a civilization, or at least the center of one. Studies have unearthed an ancient North American network of cities, towns, and villages reaching from Minnesota all the way to Florida. Evidence suggests that Cahokia sat at the center of it all. But nearly everything vanished before europeans arrived in the area during the sixteenth century. So in Cahokia we not only possess a medieval North American city, but the former capitol of a lost nation. Anyone intrigued by this idea should read this small book and visit the extremely important Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Over the past twenty years, archaeologists and historians have been reevaluating North American prehistory. Much remains unknown, but the land that became the United States saw far more action than previously believed. As the evidence slowly unfolds, Cahokia once again finds itself at the center of it all.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good introduction,
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This review is from: Cahokia: City of the Sun : Prehistoric Urban Center in the American Bottom (Paperback)
Short book easy to read. Doesn't go into a lot of detail but it's a good introduction to archeology and people of the Mississippian culture.
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