Essay Example on Uncovering the Mystery of Ancient Cahokia: The Lost City of Mississippi

Pauketat is an anthropologist at the University of Illinois, exclusively concerned about the Mississippian culture believed to have begun developing around 1050 A.D. Cahokia was one of the largest constructed Native American cities in the Northern Mexico along the eastern perimeter of River Mississippi in contemporary Illinois. From the book, we find out that present-day Americans are unacquainted with information regarding Cahokia, the ancient city existence, and its extinction. Unfortunately, the general public is completely unaware of the most spectacular elements of Native American history, as a result of disengagement by the archaeologists in their external professional environment. In the book, Pauketat traverse Cahokia’s history, its rediscovery, and the story of its excavation. There are so many revelations that were disclosed during the excavation, Cahokia was found to be one of the cultured city with festivals, rituals, and hinterlands almost four and five centuries before Columbus and Cortez respectively.

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The author, through his book, seeks to shed light on the lost history of Cahokia which is completely unknown to most Americans. He inspects the contemporary state of the understanding regarding Cahokia in an innovative and compulsive format to the general public. The city is described as “3,200 acres of great pyramids, spacious plazas, thatched-roofed temples, houses, astronomical observatories and planned neighborhoods,” (Pauketat). It is surprising that the city Cahokia and its history have been forgotten and disappeared despite being of that extensive scale with more than 120 flat-topped mounds, ranked as the 3rd largest pyramids in America. With this extensive scale, the city was worth noting.

The city's estimated high population was about 16000 residents who existed about three centuries ago. However, it remains a mystery still due to few available archeological pieces of evidence that only reveals about 8 percent of its entire primal six square mile colony. The Cahokia’s original inhabitants also remain an enigma. However, the name Cahokia was coined by the French settlers who came across a tribe of the Illinois Confederacy in the seventeenth century to live the area. Their settlement style represented one of the immense aspects of population nucleation that have never been prehistorically produced in America to the Northern part of Mexico. From the archeological pieces of evidence provided by the author in his book, we find out that the community structure was certainly organized with clearly defined elite compounds, ceremonial or the administrative zones, suburbs, and discrete residential locality. The presence of extensive earthwork and the vast central plaza provides high levels of planning skills, knowledge, and enormous labor dissipation.

After the end of World War II, the federal government and the state-recognized Cahokia as an ancient peoples’ monument that deserved to be protected and preserved to prevent the disappearance of its artifacts, specifically its 120 mounds due to immense and continuous constructions within the area. Cahokia, located in Collinsville, Illinois, is currently known as the Cahokia Mounds Historical Interpretive Site, it is one of the tourist attraction sites with many artifacts attracting thousands of visitors every year. However, much of the information about the site’s past, how the city transformed into a bigger metropolis, and the course of its collapse is still a mystery to many.

Regardless of all the enigmas, anthropologist Timothy Pauketat of the University of Illinois, through precise and methodical research, he has been able to unearth some of the vital information that could shed light on the history of Cahokia. The author, attributes the spring of Cahokia to a 1054 supernova in Taurus constellation, that for 23 days lighted up the sky day and night (Pauketat). During this time, a small village which formed a hierarchical society existed. As a hierarchical community with aristocratic class, the connections with the Indian high class also enabled them to make use of supernova to extend their influence through the surrounding neighborhood as they establish well organized and governed villages and towns. Due to their power and political influence, they attracted thousands of settlers who resettled in the city. Cahokia, therefore, became one of the megalopolis cities which was agriculturally rich due to the influence of river Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois.

With the presence of new resettles, the ruling class in Cahokia harnessed their labor to enable progressive development and prosperity of the city. Following the precepts of the influential privileged, the working class established a well-planned city with stockades, plazas, multiple dwellings, avenues, and mounds. The author describes the laboring manner as a methodical during the establishment of the city. The pre-contact individuals excavated the earth lifting millions of baskets of soil and other dug materials such as the gravel, debris, and rocks to construct the biggest earthen mound in North America. The mound was named Monk's Mound, after Trappist monks who migrated to Cahokia and established their chapel on top of the mound in the late eighteenth century.

The society progressed to a very labor-intensive community, and the working group built the massive mound for their god, the sun god, who they regarded as their leader. They believed that their leader’s forces come so close and spread in this built dwelling which they named the Grand Plaza. The Grand Plaza is where they carried out ceremonies and plaid games such as chunkey. The Cahokians were also time-oriented society, and they built Woodhenges which were absolutely in line with their sun god. The Woodhenges were intended to mark equinox and the solstice. Additionally, the author, Timothy R. Pauketat, also reveals from the few archeological pieces of evidence that there were practices such as human sacrifices that took place, even though partial pieces of evidence are provided by the archaeological remains. From the book, we can see the author speculates that the internal strive may have led to the demise of the Cahokia’s

Moreover, the author argues that due to extensive projection of Cahokia's military might, might have caused the development of power vacuum and the society stated scattering because they were no longer sun god centric. However, some of the most evident and main things evident from the book include, the massive area covered by Cahokia city with the Great Plaza at the center occupying fifty acres in of land. Secondly, the influential nature of the native tribes of Cahokia enabled them to attract so many settlers who massively provided them with labor. They also played sacred games such as chunkey at the Great Plaza where the chunky yard was found. The game was only played after the ritual preparation of the chunky yard. Chunkey is considered a development of the older hoop-and-pole game. Apart from practicing sophisticated astronomy, they also practiced human sacrifice, which is considered as an absolute part of their civilization as this practice was used by the elite to eliminate their competitors.

Conclusion

In summary, I considered the book well written due to its easy back and forth flow covering the distant past and some of the challenges experienced by modern archaeologists particularly those that intend to save Cahokia and other archeological sites that are under extinction. However, I wish Timothy R. Pauketat had explored more and given us elaborate evidence and history of the Cahokia’s decline and how it influenced various tribes found in Middle America. Regardless, Pauketat's contribution of shading light on the history of the Cahokia, the Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi is worth noting in Dartmouth College Colin Calloway.

Work Cited

Pauketat, Timothy R. Cahokia. Penguin Books, 2010.