Ancient North America:
Cahokia

A map showing the extent of Missippian cultural
influence at the height of the Mississippian civilizations, ca. A.D. 1200-1500.
Some archaeological sites and modern Toronto are noted.
The tip of Southern Ontario is circled.
Modified from "Atlas of Ancient Archaeology", by Jacquetta Hawkes, Page 234.

There were hundreds of towns and cities all over ancient North America. Three were exceptionally large: Cahokia, Illinois; the Moundville Complex, spread out on the Black Warrior River in Alabama, and Etowah. These were simply the largest. There were many other important centres, as well as countless smaller towns and villages.

Cahokia's ruins lie on the Cahokia Creek near Collinsville, Illinois, U.S.A. At its height, around A.D. 1200, it had about the same population as London, England at the time, with over 10,000 people.

All of these sites were characterized by massive mounds of earth, remarkable constructions that must have taken many thousands of work-hours to produce.

There was a long history of cultural development in the American mid-west and south. The "Hopewell" culture complexes of 100 B.C. - A.D. 600 gave birth to the magnificent Missippians, who were at their peak when the Europeans arrived.

These urban and agricultural centres were destroyed when the Europeans arrived in North America, but the descendants of their builders have survived to this day.

The biggest features of Cahokia and other Mississippian sites are the massive earthen mounds, on which temples and (perhaps) principal residences were built. Building temples on massive earthen mounds follows the Mesoamerican tradition of Mexico, rather than the old-world pattern of tombs and grave markers, implying along with the use of Mesoamerican crops a strong cultural connection to southern North America and Mexico. Monk's Mound, Cahokia's biggest, is 32 metres tall, spreads over 6.5 hectares and has 623,000 cubic metres of earth (!). A monastery was built on the top of it in the 1800's, which is how it got the name. Locals learned of the nature of the mound after they drilled a well.

• "Woodhenge": an ancient astronomical device, also called a "sun-circle" (in the upper-left)
• Artificial reservoirs
• Roads linking the city to outlying areas and other towns
• The palisaded (walled) "downtown" enclosure
• Temple complexes (reminiscent of Mesoamerican civilizations in Mexico and Central America)
• The "port", with boats and cargo canoes
• The ball-court, where various games were played (for sport or ritual) (also reminiscent of Mesoamerican civilizations in Mexico and Central America)
• The clusters or neighbourhoods of houses, showing some kind of clan, family, trade or other social-unit sub-organization, indicating a type of complex social structure
• The endless sea of farms, the wide extend of agriculture and areas under cultivation