LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Cahokia
built 641 days ago
For 500 years, Cahokia was the major center of a culture that, at its peak, stretched from Red Wing, Minnesota to Key Marco, Florida and across the southeast. Cahokia is the largest prehistoric site in North America, north of Central Mexico. The site is located across the Mississippi River, east of St. Louis, Missouri on a now extinct river channel. The city of Cahokia is the focal point of what is known as the American Bottoms, the broad alluvial valley of the Mississippi River just south of the confluence of the Missouri, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. This area is considered to be one of the most fertile agricultural zones in North America. The rivers that joined within this area not only furnished the transportation needs (trade) of the city but through seasonal flooding it constrantly replenished the fertility of the soil.
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[T]he power and glory of Cahokia is something difficult to deny now. Monk’s Mound is the largest earthen structure of its kind. Named for the Trappist monks who lived there for a short time, the mound is over 100 feet tall, 1,000 feet long, and 800 feet wide–forming a base larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza. Over some three centuries and in several stages of construction, the Cahokians moved 22 million cubic feet of wet earth from swampy borrow pits around the site, to form the massive structure. It is formed out of four terraces, finally leading up to the highest point, where the chief’s hut once stood–a glorious wooden structure that may have risen another 50 feet into the air. From that space today, you can see the Mississippi, and even downtown St. Louis.
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Cahokia was abandoned a century or more before Europeans arrived in North America in the early 1500s. Environmental factors such as over-hunting and deforestation have been proposed as explanations. Another possible cause is invasion by outside peoples, though the only evidence of warfare found so far is the wooden stockade and watchtowers that enclosed Cahokia's main ceremonial precinct. Due to the lack of other evidence for warfare, the palisade seems to have been more ritual than military. Diseases facilitated by the large, dense urban population are another possible cause of decline. However, many recent theories propose political collapse as the primary reason for Cahokia’s abandonment.[3]
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"Monk's Mound", the primary mound of the Cahokia acropolis, so-called because of the monastery that once occupied its apex after the first European explorers came through what is now central Illinois. This massive mound has the same approximate base area as the Great Pyramid at Giza, though it is not nearly as tall. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982, Cahokia is noted for its important role in the prehistory of North America. Here is Monk's Mound as viewed from the southeast (top), south (bottom left) and east (bottom right).
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Cahokia was first settled around 650 during the Late Woodland period, but mound building did not begin there until about 1050 at the beginning of the Mississippian cultural period. The site was abandoned before 1400. The inhabitants left no written records, and the city's original name is unknown. The name "Cahokia" refers to an unrelated clan of Illiniwek people living in the area when the first French explorers arrived in the 1600s, long after Cahokia was abandoned. The living descendants of the Cahokia people are unknown, although many Native American groups are plausible contenders.
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While Cahokia was surrounded by an enormous log palisade 13 to 16 feet high and perhaps 2.4 miles in length, its decline does not seem to have resulted from outside attack. Nor does any evidence exist to suggest that Cahokia engaged in wars of conquest. A chiefdom (lacking a standing army or police force) rather than a state, Cahokia may have declined for simple environmental reasons. While the maize agriculture introduced into the area around A.D. 750 sparked the rapid growth of the community and supported a relatively large population, it did not provide a balanced diet to the average Cahokian. Soil erosion may have ... cut into productivity over time. Further, the enormous palisade required perhaps 20,000 large trees, which were replaced several times during Cahokia's heyday.
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Cahokia