SnakeMedicine_Book1

Some speculate that the Cahokia city
was the northern most outreach of the
Middle American culturals of the Post
Classic period and the height of the archeologist’s
Mississippian era. The societies
that built these mounds extended throughout
the Mississippi’s watershed: Southern
Canada to the Great Plains, east to the
Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Some mounds were known to be used as
burial mounds; some to provide a ceremonial
platform. But generally the reason the
mounds were built remains elusive.
Some of the many mounds of Cahokia
were destroyed when the interstate highways
were constructed in the 1950s. At
least five interstates intersect. St. Louis.
The city and Cahokia, both port cities, hug
the grand Mississippi River at the center
of the United States.
According to Charles C. Mann, author
of the groundbreaking work of science,
history, and archaeology, 1491, Cahokia
was a city of at least 15,000, “the biggest
concentration of people north of Rio
Grande until the eighteenth century.” 2
Now, nearby schools have for generations
sent their children here on school excursions.
Now the ceremonial center of Cahokia
is quiet, with only tourists climbing
the mounds and walking the grounds. It is
so peaceful that the deer are fearless of
human activity nearby.
2 Charles C. Mann; 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Second Edition; Vintage Books, New York, July 2011.
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