I show an aerial picture of the Cahokia mound in my U.S. History class, but since we were passing nearby when I went to Southern Illinois University last week, we stopped to look. There are more than one of these structures; lots of them; 50 million baskets of earth moved by back.
There is a little black line on top:
And lots of other mounds of smaller size:
apparently platforms for elite homes.
The Mississipian culture that built them flourished during the
Medieval Climate Optimum when grain grew plentifully enough to allow a large centralized state, before the
Little Ice Age ended it.
I blame Roman jets and SUVs.
There are similar mounds in Macon, GA, at the Ocmulgee National Monument. Construction of the mounds is very similar with baskets of dirt brought in from all over the region. This site was also a trading site with the colonists and regional tribes.
ReplyDeleteAnd, in Cartersville, GA there are the Etowah Indian mounds.
I'm sure there are more.
I'd always thought it was smallpox and measles that killed them off.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping this is sarcasm. Both diseases are part of the Columbian exchange (you give us potatoes and corn; we give you steel, smallpox, and measles). This culture is over by 1300.
ReplyDeleteMy comment was with respect to this notion:
ReplyDelete"The Mississipian culture that built them flourished during the Medieval Climate Optimum when grain grew plentifully enough to allow a large centralized state, before the Little Ice Age ended it."
I'd thought it was pretty settled that it was European diseases that destroyed the Mississippian cities, not climate change.
FWIW - I've never been to Cahokia, but I visited Dickson Mounds, in Lewiston IL, back before the lawsuits forced them to close.
ReplyDeleteJeff: European diseases did enormous damage, but could not have collapsed them in 1300.
ReplyDelete