century before Christopher Columbus set substructure in the Americas , a colossal urban center along the floodplain of the Mississippi River was buzzing along with its thousand upon thousands of residents . picayune of the grand metropolis continue today except for a sprinkling of grassy hills , known as the Cahokia Mounds .
Just a short drive from St Louis in Missouri , theCahokia Moundsare the cadaver of the largest pre - Columbian small town north of Mexico ( at least that modern - sidereal day archeologist bed about ) . It served as a vivacious economic hub of the Mississippian culture , which dominated the region from 800 to 1350 CE .
The liquidation reach its peak between 1050 and 1150 CE when it covered around 1,600 hectare ( 4,000 acres ) of land . estimate vary , but it ’s believed it held a universe of somewhere between 10,000 to 50,000 people .
Artist’s illustration of how the Cahokia Mounds site might have appeared around 1,000 years ago.Image credit:Herb Roe/Wikimedia Commons(CC BY-SA 4.0)
Around 51 of the village ’s original 120 earthen mounds still stand today . The most large is the so - called Monks Mound , the great prehistorical earthen structure in the whole of the Americas .
This large platform mound rises in four terrace to a height of 30 meters ( 98 base ) . It was constructed using hatful of soil and mud packed on top of each other until they organize a outrageous mound . In its prime , it in all likelihood fend more just , but the slopes have slumped over the 100 . Some researchers have argued that Monks Mound might have acquire as long as 250 years to amply build , butmore recent evidencesuggests its construction could have been potential within just 20 years .
While not as mighty as theGreat Pyramid of Gizain their size of it or grandeur , it ’s worth remember that these cumulation were manufacture without wheels , metallic element tools , or beasts of burden like horse or cows .
Cahokia also featured an astronomic observatory , known as “ Woodhenge ” , made up of wooden billet evenly space around a rope like bit on a clock . Archaeologistsbelievethis structure was aligned to the position of the Sun in the sky during the summertime solstice and the winter solstice , as well as the springtime and fall equinoctial point .
Some believe this urban center was already deserted and left to ruin by the timeEuropean coloniser arrivedon American grunge in the fifteenth century CE . The understanding for its premature dying is not agreed upon but there are a range of theories , ranging from drought andpersistent floodingto state of war andsocial collapse .
However , astudy in 2020argued the story of Cahokia ’s gloaming is n’t as clear - stinger . They found grounds that the Native Americans repopulated the neighborhood in the 16th century CE and preserve a unshakable presence there through the eighteenth hundred .
" One would think the Cahokia region was a spectre town at the sentence of European contact , based on the archeological platter , but we were able to piece together a Native American presence in the area that endured for centuries , " AJ White , direct generator of the 2020 discipline and UC Berkeley doctorial bookman in anthropology , aver in astatement .
“ There ’s very little archaeological evidence for an Indigenous population past Cahokia , but we were able to satiate in the gaps through historical , climatic , and bionomic information , and the linchpin was the faecal stanol evidence , ” White added .
" The story of Cahokia was a lot more complex than , ' Goodbye , Native Americans . Hello , Europeans ' . "
