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Cahokia Mounds, the Late Woodland Culture September 28, 2008

Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Europe, Museum, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, USA , trackback

This 2,200-A0 (890HA) site is situated just to the east of St Louis, in southern Illinois, close to Collinsville (not, confusingly, near the town of Cahokia). It is the remains of a large city and ritual complex which was first occupied around AD 700, developed, flowered, declined and was abandoned by AD 1500. At its peak it covered some six square miles (1,550ha) and had a population of about 20,000. It was certainly the largest community in prehistoric times in what is now the USA, and its influence extended for great distances.

The first inhabitants were Indians of what archaeologists call the Late Woodland culture (AD 300-800). Large, permanent villages were established, and cultivation of certain crops supported subsistence off the abundant wildlife. The population grew and social complexity developed during the period AD 800-1000, the `Emergent Mississippian’ period, and corn became an important part of the diet. The full development of Cahokia, however, occurred during the Mississippian period proper (AD 1000-1400). These names for periods of prehistoric Indian culture are invented by archaeologists, because no one knows what the actual people involved called themselves. These Indian peoples based around the Mississippi valleys have also been referred to as ‘The Mound Builders’. Whatever one calls them, they are lost to us, except in the remains of their structures and artefacts.

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Cahokia at its peak had its central portion surrounded by a defensive palisade enclosing a large D-shaped area. The main mounds and certain dwellings were contained within the palisade, but more mounds, habitations for the ordinary population and the cultivated areas stretched out beyond this boundary. The people lived not in teepees but in pole-frame dwellings that had clay-plastered walls and thatched roofs. Over 120 mounds originally existed on the site, but the locations of only 106 have been recorded. Approximately 68 are preserved within the tract defined by the modern State Historic Site.

There are three basic types of mound at Cahokia — platform mounds, which have flat tops and square or rectangular bases, looking like earthen pyramids; round, conical mounds, and long, oval-based ridge-top mounds. Platform mounds supported buildings on their summits — temples, charnel houses and residencies for the elite. The less common conical mounds (which used to be called ‘chocolate drop’ mounds because of their shape) seem to have been primarily for burial, and many seem to have been associated with platform mounds.

Cahokia archaeologist Melvin Fowler suggests that the platform mounds ‘represent the location of charnel structures and the associated conical mounds were the burial mounds‘.’ The ridge-top mounds also contained burials in a few cases, but their key function seems to have been geomantic: Fowler notes that five of the eight ridge mounds mark the extreme limits of the mound area, and three align with Monks Mound to form a north—south line.

The mounds were placed around open areas or plazas, highly reminiscent of ancient Mesoamerican cities. Most experts now think, however, that these features evolved locally rather than resulting from Mesoamerican influence. Cahokia was laid out to the cardinal directions, and where the east—west and north— south axes crossed stood Monks Mound, a mighty platform mound raised in four terraces, itself orientated close to the cardinal directions. It was not only the largest mound at Cahokia, but the largest in the North American continent. It stands over 100 feet (30m) high, covers more than 14 acres (5.6ha) and contains around 22 million cubic feet (622,600 cubic m) of earth. The depredations of time together with, in recent centuries, building and cultivation on its terraces (by, among others, the French Trappist monks in the nineteenth century after whom the mound was named) has caused Monks Mound to lose some of its shape, and it has slumped in parts. Fortunately, enough survives for its basic form and massive bulk to be still appreciated. (Some idea of its original, pristine appearance is shown in the illustration, which was drawn by Cahokia’s current curator, William R. Iseminger.) So large is it, that even into the beginning of the twentieth century some could still seriously argue that it was a natural feature! This view, Fowler comments, was ‘probably influenced by racist attitudes. Many believed that the ancestors of the American Indian did not have the capacity to apply themselves to any task as time consuming and elaborate as the building of Monks Mound.” The site of the mound was occupied in AD 800, but the actual mound was built in various stages and developments from about AD 950 until approximately AD 1200. On the fourth or summit terrace, the Mississippians built a huge building 105 feet long, 48 feet wide and an estimated 50 feet high (32 x 15 x 15.3m). This was presumably the king’s or chieftain’s dwelling — a palace or even a temple, if we see the leader as a religious figure, as is likely. A great post was erected outside the building, and on the southeastern corner of the third terrace was a small mound.

Quite apart from its size, the central position of Monks Mound, at the hub of the four directions, marks it as Cahokia’s omphalos, a role no doubt emphasized by the massive pole surmounting it. The late Joseph

Campbell noted the significance of the great mound’s positioning:

Since it is in the middle of the site, its symbolic function, as representing the axial height joining earth and sky, is evident. The idea of such a generative center is already represented in the Spiro Mound gorget, which is an unmistakable representation of the mythological archetype of the quartered cosmos: an ‘elementary idea’ of which the swastika and equal-armed cross are abstractions. The prominence of these symbols [from Spiro Mound, LeFlore County, Oklahoma, and other sites] speaks for the importance of this concept in Mississippian thought.’

A large ceremonial structure, quite possibly a shrine, was built on the southwest corner of the first terrace of Monks Mound. The first building burnt down around AD 1150, and was replaced by a small platform mound and a new building. In the following century, eight rebuildings took place at this spot. It was clearly a significant location, and it cannot be accidental that it is through here that the north—south axis of Cahokia passes. Running south from this point, the meridian passes through a ridge-top mound (number 49 in the archaeological categorization used at Cahokia), between a great platform and conical mound pair nicknamed `Twin Mounds‘, across the southeast end of ridge mound 72, and to the southernmost ridge mound, the massive Rattlesnake Mound, number 66.

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