Journey back to the eleventh century when North America was a wide open continent teaming with wildlife and nature, where the native peoples were in the minority, where natural resources were in abundance, and where life was different. Travel up the Mississippi and when you get to a place near to what would one day be the city of St. Louis, you will find great flat-top pyramids reaching into the sky, and a place teaming with activity and people. You have reached the ancient and once great city of Cahokia.
Excavations were begun in the area of what would turn out to be the city of Cahokia in the early twentieth century, with a combination of some lucky guesses for sites, and with the great revolution to map America with highways, crucial archeological digs were discovered. In some cases, prosperity destroyed some of these sites, but many others were found and excavated. Author and professor of anthropology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Timothy R. Pauketat, weaves the history and story of this city and culture with the incredible work that was done to excavate and learn about it.
Cahokia is a short book filled with facts and details about a place that few know about, but through crucial research and discovery, it is possible to ascertain through subsequent Native American tribes and populations, what this great city was once like. In this way, readers find out what the stories and mythologies of these people might have been, as well as why the pyramids were built, and why there was such large-scale human sacrifice going on. While there is a lacking in photos and pictures to aid and illustrate in Pauketat’s narrative, Cahokia will still startle you and leave you in awe of what was once a great American city that remains relatively unknown.
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Originally written on July 18th 2009 ©Alex C. Telander.
Originally published in the Sacramento Book Review.
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