Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Cahokia

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

You are probably familiar with several of the great pre-Columbian cities in the Americas. Places like Tikal in Guatemala, Copan in Honduras, and Tenochtitlan in Mexico are some of the great legacies of the civilizations that came before.  However, all of these population centers were located in Mesoamerican. Most of the people who lived in what is today the United States and Canada were nomadic and never built any large cities. However, there was one major exception.  Learn more about Cahokia, the largest pre-Columbian settlement in North America, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors BetterHelp Visit BetterHelp.com/everywhere today to get 10% off your first month ButcherBox Sign up today at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to choose your free steak for a year and get $20 off."  Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're probably familiar with, or at least heard, of several of the great pre-Columbian cities in the Americas. Places like Tikal, Guatemala, Copan, Honduras, and Tenochtitlan, Mexico are some of the great legacies of the civilizations that came before. However, all of those population centers were located in Mesoamerica. Most of the people who lived in what is today the United States and Canada were nomadic and never built any large cities or structures. With one major exception. Learn more about it. about Cahokia, the largest pre-Columbian settlement in North America on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time

to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Before Europeans arrived in the new world, there were several major civilizations in the Americas, some of which already had fallen by the time Columbus arrived. The Incas, the Olmecs, the Maya, and the Aztecs were just some of the people who left behind monumental stone structures that we can still see today. All of these cultures had traits that would be defined as, quote, civilizations. They had highly complex social structures, a system of writing, and highly organized systems

of intellectual, cultural, and material development. But this gets into a weird distinction between a culture and a civilization. When we use the term civilization, we tend to use it for cultures that built monumental structures. But there were many advanced cultures in the Americas that didn't necessarily leave behind the type of structures that the Maya or the Aztecs did. In many cases, they had very complex social structures, but their communities just weren't very big, and they didn't necessarily build permanent structures out of stone. When we look at cultures north of Mexico, most of the people were either nomadic or lived in small communities. When Europeans showed up in the new world, they didn't find any quote-unquote advanced civilizations in North America. However, there was something that would be called an advanced civilization.

Archaeologists would call it the Mississippian culture, and it's a name given to them retroactively, not one that they use themselves. If you haven't heard of the Mississippian culture, it's because they live. largely ceased to exist by the time Europeans arrived. The Mississippians weren't a single unified culture. There were groups of loosely associated people that existed in what is today the Central and Southeastern United States. There were various Mississippian cultures extending from Georgia and Northern Florida, all the way to Louisiana and East Texas in the South, and then up along the Mississippi River to Wisconsin and Minnesota, and then to Michigan in the North. We have no idea what the Mississippians or their various subcultures called themselves,

and we have no record of their language. What we do know about the Mississippians has come from archaeology and artifacts that have been discovered. There are some general traits that most of the Mississippian cultures in the region had in common. We know they had an extensive trade network that was largely connected by the Mississippi River and its tributaries. They had a very top-down social structure that was run by a small elite or maybe a local community run by a chief. They were largely agricultural, with the primary crop being maize or corn. Moreover, they had very similar artifacts and mythology that are collectively referred to as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Perhaps the most significant cultural trait was that of large earthwork mounds.

The one site that has the largest earthworks and a central and strategic position for the entire Mississippi and culture was Cahokia. Cahokia was located right across the river from the modern-day city of St. Louis, Missouri. The location of Cahokia and St. Louis is not accidental. It is right at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, one of, if not the most, strategic locations in the United States. Cahokia wasn't discovered like most archaeological sites are. Cahokia was never really lost, as those who lived near Kohokia always knew it was there. Moreover, the site has a very large and obvious mound that's pretty hard to miss. When early French explorers and missionaries explored the Mississippi, they found the ruins of Kohokia, even if they didn't

really know what it was. Archaeologists didn't begin studying Kohokia seriously until the end of the 19th in the early 20th centuries. So, what exactly was found at Kohokia and what makes it special enough to do an episode on it. Here's a very brief overview of the rise and fall of Cahokia. There is evidence of human occupation of Cahogia going back at least 3,200 years. However, the earliest evidence of habitation of Cahogia as a Mississippian settlement goes back to about the 8th century. From about the year 700 until the year 1050, Cahokia was a small but growing settlement. Then around the year 1050, the site exploded in size and population. population. For about 150 years, Cahokia was at its peak and was the largest population

center north of Mexico. Estimates for the population at this time vary, but the most common estimates put the population between 10,000 and 20,000 people. And I've also seen estimates that are as high as 40,000. Just to put that into comparison, that would have made Cahokia as large as London during that time period, and maybe even as large as Rome, which had shrunk considerably from its peak. After the year 1200, Cahokia fell into decline, and by the year 1350, the site had been abandoned. So Cahokia has a history going back centuries, with its golden age lasting about 150 years. But what do we know about the site itself, the people who live there, and how do we know it? For starters, the word Cahokia was not the name for the site by the people who live there.

We have no clue what they called it because there's no written or oral history of the site that's ever been passed. down. The name Cahokia was taken from the local Cahokia tribe that lived in the area when French explorers first came through in the 17th century. Because we have no written or oral history of Cahokia, everything we know comes from archaeology. In some cases, the archaeological evidence is very ambiguous and open to different interpretations. But in other cases, especially with the help of advanced techniques, we can paint a much clearer picture of what life was like there. Cahokia lies in a mud flat just east of the Mississippi River. river. There are several small lakes and ponds nearby. By analyzing the sediment and conducting an

analysis of the pollen types at the bottom of the lake, it's possible to both date and get an idea of what sort of plants were growing nearby. The story it tells is one of deforestation in the period when Cahokia was entering its peak, followed by a period of agriculture, in particular the growth of corn or maize. The organization of the city changed. Magnetic analysis of the soil shows that Cahokia changed from a small settlement that grew organically to a planned city that was based on a grid layout. This change in layout occurred near the start of the Cahokia peak period as something happened that changed the importance of the site. More on that in a bit. The signature feature of Cahogia, and the one thing that's still clearly visible today,

is what's known as Monks Mound. The name Munk's Mound comes from the fact that a small community of Trappist monks lived at the site shortly after the arrival of Europeans to the region. Monk's mound is a large earthwork, in fact the largest single one north of Mexico, and it stands 100 feet or 30 meters high or close to the height of a 10-story building. It consists of four different terrace layers and has an area of 13.8 acres or 5.6 hectares. Core samples of the mound have been taken that give a glimpse as to how the mound was built. The mound was built in phases over a period of decades, if not centuries. The final version of the mound contains over 814,000 cubic yards or 622,000 cubic meters of Earth.

All of the earth used to make monks mound is believed to have been moved by hand as they had no draft animals. At the top of the mound, there's evidence of a large structure. What the structure was or what it was used for isn't known, but the best theories are that it was either a temple of some sort or the home of the leader of Cahokia. There are multiple other smaller mounds around the site, many of which are burial mounds. The burial site showed that there was a definite hierarchy in Cahokian society, with a wealthy upper class and a much poorer, lower class. One of the other fascinating discoveries has been called Woodhenge. It's a series of five concentric circles that were made out of timber.

The circles are believed to have been constructed over a period of about 200 years, with each successive circle being larger than the previous one. Woodhenge is believed to have been used for astronomical purposes, similar to Stonehenge, hence the name. But the discovery I personally found the most interesting had to do with an analysis of strontium isotopes in tooth enamel. There are several different isotopes of the element strontium. However, the ratios of them will differ in different locations. That means that everyone who lives in the same area should have pretty much the same ratios of strontium isotopes in their tooth enamel. You might not be able to tell exactly where someone was from, but you can't tell if they grew up in the same place as someone else. An analysis of teeth found in Cahokia shows that a geographically diverse group of people lived or at least visited the site.

And this is supported by the discovery of shells and other artifacts that are native to coastal regions hundreds of miles away from Cahokia. Based on all of the archaeological evidence found at Cahokia so far, the big question is, Why did this settlement get so big and why did so many people travel such great distances to get there? There are several theories which aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. The first of these is the obvious one given its location at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Cahokia was a regional trading center. If you remember back to my episode on the Mississippi River, you might remember that the Mississippi and all of its tributaries

formed the largest navigable inland waterway system in the world. In ancient times, this river would have served as a superhighway. Large canoes could easily travel up and down the river trading goods. The logical point for everyone to meet would be at the center of the system, which is exactly why St. Louis is located there today. Another theory holds that Cahokia was a site for important religious rituals of the Mississippian culture. People may have flocked to Cahocchio for religious purposes, which may have also conceded with trade missions.

Either way, one of the reasons why people traveled so far to visit Cahokia is because it was one of the few places that would have even been possible to travel to. The last big question, then, is why Cahokia was eventually abandoned. It was a great location, so no matter what happened there, the geographic benefits of the site would have remained. The answer is, no one's quite sure what happened. One theory is that the site became prone to flooding after the year 1,200. and this could have been caused by local deforestation in the area.

Another holds that a change in climate may have been the cause. A period known as the medieval warm period ended right about the time Cahokia went into decline. The change in climate could have affected rainfall, which could have affected the course of the river. Another theory holds that Cahokia may have been subject to raids, which would explain the defensive fortifications found at the site. Either way, there probably wasn't any great singular disaster at Cahokia. The people simply migrated over time, splintered apart, and became the local native tribes in the Midwest. Today you can visit Cahokia Mound State Park in Illinois.

In 1982, it was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And if you ever visit St. Louis, I highly recommend visiting as it's close by and easy to get to. Cahokia, as far as we know, was the largest populated settlement north of Mexico, and it held that distinction until the 18th century. As such, it's one of the most important archaeological sites, not only in North America, but in the entire world. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiever. I wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who supports the show on Patreon. Your support helps me put out a new show every day.

And if you're interested in Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise, Patreon is currently the only place where it's available. And if you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and get notified a future episodes and projects, please join my Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.