Pre-Columbian America explores the splendor of the Americas before Christopher Columbus’ fateful arrival in 1492, while juxtaposing colonial attitudes towards Native Americans and their achievements.
Monk’s Mound, the largest earthwork in North America, anchors the main plaza group.
From the opening lines of The American Pageant, a high school American History textbook:
“The American republic, which is still relatively young, was from the outset singularly favored. It started from scratch on a vast and virgin continent, which was so sparsely peopled by Indians that they could be eliminated or pushed aside. Such a magnificent opportunity for a great democratic experiment may never come again, for no other huge, fertile, and uninhabited areas are left in the temperate zones of this crowded planet.1”
Aerial views show the expanse of the United States’ largest pre-Columbian urban center, and linear rows of trees demarcate where a suburban housing division’s main street used to be.
With soaring earthworks on par with the base of the pyramids of Giza and larger than Teotihuacan in Mexico, why is it that you’ve never heard of Cahokia? The inhabitants tracked the stars on such a profound level, that the entire city was laid out according to the sun’s equinoxes. In the year 1250CE, London was a backwater town while Cahokia was a thriving metropolis.
Today it stands 15 minutes from St. Louis.
Sunrise during the Fall equinox lines up with the bases of the mounds.
The Cahokian environment was flush with natural resources that could sustain large numbers of people.Birds fly in-between platform and other mounds of the east plaza group.
Sunset illuminates the silhouette of Monk’s Mound, now in increasing danger of erosion due to natural and man-made hazards of the area.
The sun rises over Woodhenge, an ancient Cahokian wooden marker of the position of the stars.
Keeley & Sons Inc, a paving construction company, pushes right up to the immediate border of Woodhenge. Woodhenge is part of the broader Cahokian UNESCO World Heritage Site.Excavations on the site revealed ceder post holes in multiple concentric circles that align with celestial events.
1920’s Domestic construction tore into the Sugarloaf platform mound to create a single family house. Work is underway to remove the home and restore the site, which is minutes from the St. Louis Arch.
Collinsville road tears through the base of Monk’s Mound, and separates it from the rest of the Plaza and surrounding mound groups.
With sheer indifference to the past, a modern suburban landscape was paved over and cut into the sprawling site of Cahokia. Note the platform mound middle center, next to the main road. Efforts are underway by the Cahokia Historical Society to acquire any land that comes up for sale. You can help save Cahokia from any more destruction here.
Bailey, Thomas A. The American Pageant. D.C. Heath and Company, 1956, pp. 4.
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