Cahokia

History of Cahokia

Emergence of Cahokia

The area of Cahokia remains unoccupied until the 6th century after J. - C.: as from this moment, Indians gather in villages and live products of the gardening. They practice the Cabotage on the rivers. They nourish seeds of Phalaris reed then of corn as from the 9th century. It is at that time that the settlement becomes denser and that a company complexes to be born. The attics with corn require an administrative management and raise of a certain centralization. Cahokia is dominated by a charismatic chief and a religiseuse elite, who order the construction of monuments (hillocks and the tumuli). The population clears the surroundings and more and more far will bring back wood. According to recent work of the archeologist William Woods, Cahokia would have derived the course from Canteen Creek in order to mitigate the lack of water. This great work of drain combined with the Déforestation would have supported catastrophic Inondation S.

A mysterious disappearance?

Cahokia was abandoned before the arrival of Europeans in America. The fall of the city is difficult to explain. For some, the catastrophic floods of the 13th century, caused by the destruction of the surrounding forests, would have involved the forfeiture of the leaders and the decline of the city. The elites would have made set up an immense palisade of three kilometers around the monumental center. Physical separation between the aristocracy and the people doubled of a social segregation: the chiefs were made bury with invaluable objects, delicate potteries and crimped semi-precious stone jewels; the priests lost their legitimacy to protect the city from the supernatural forces. All that probably involved a Civil war, whose archeologists found the signs (fires of houses). A Séisme would have also caused import destruction in XIIIe century, and the city would never really have been concerned cataclysm: in the middle of the 14th century, Cahokia had been almost deserted.

Research of the archeologists

At the 19th century, the tumuli remained mysterious: some allotted their construction to Phéniciens, to the Welsh, to the Scandinavians and even with the Atlante S. the first systematic archaeological excavations began in the Années 1960. Today, William Woods, of the Université of Kansas is one of the best specialists in the site which is classified today on the Liste of the world heritage of Humanity.

Description

The site

One does not know the name of the place given by the contemporaries, because those did not use any written form. The name “Cahokia” is thus unsuitable; it comes from the deformation of a toponym employed by people which lived after the disappearance of the city.

The site of Cahokia is near the junction of three rivers: the Illinois, the Missouri and the the Mississippi. This sector is called “ American Bottom ”. Located on alluvial terraces, the ground is fertile and argillaceous there. Today, Cahokia is in the area of the Midwest, close to the agglomeration of Saint Louis.

Cahokia was the principal chief town of civilization mississippienne between 950 to 1250. It extended on 12 km ².

The “city”

The town of Cahokia appeared about the year millet of our era. The buildings were gradually arranged at the top of a hillock ( mound in English) out of ground, high of approximately 30 meters and a final surface of 8 hectares.

Places of worship

temple of the divinized kings.
Monks Mound is a ground tumulus on four levels; it was called Monks Mound (the “hillock of the monks” in remembering the monks Trappists who had settled with XVIIIe and XIXe centuries. Monks Mound dominated a 350 m length place. Its foundations rested on a clay flagstone covered with sand of 300 meters out of 200 meters, and of a 7 meters height.

Daily life with Cahokia

The archeologists tried to reconstitute the life of the inhabitants of Cahokia starting from the data which they could collect. However, for lack of texts, the specialists are reduced by it to put forth assumptions, in particular to explain the rites and the religion. The inhabitants of Cahokia did not leave written testimonys and the city had disappeared when the first Europeans explored the area. Cahokia was populated peasants who lived in hundreds of houses out of wooden, surmounted thatched roof. They cultivated the corn fields. Part of the population was to be affected with the maintenance of the clay hillocks. The elite was made bury in tumuli with pearls, objects out of mica,… They were accompanied in their last residence by sacrificed men and women.

Because of its situation of junction and system of channels, Cahokia was an important place for the trade: the Amerindians had neither draft animals, nor of charriots. They transported their goods to back of man or by the rivers. The specialists know that the Mississippi was used as transportation route before the arrival of Europeans: the Amerindians traversed it on board boats of bark; they transported the trunks by floatation. In Cahokia were exchanged copper, mother-of-pearl, meat of bison and wapiti. The river and its affluents provided also fish.

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