The rise and fall of Cahokia

[UM-Bot]

Submitted by Tanagra: Steeped in a rich history, Illinois boasts some very interesting stories from the past. Most accounts begin around the late 1600’s upon the arrival of Joliet and Marquette.

However, there is a Native American chronicle that reaches back further into a mysterious past. The mystery of the mound builders has sparked the interest of people all over the world.

View: Full Article | Source: Failed Success

[louie]

also alot of the mounds are aligned to the summer and winter solaciste as are many many buildings an pyramids from ancient cultures around the world.

[IronGhost]

This could not be a more fascinating story! There is something about lost, ancient civizilations that evokes a feeling of awe and mystery. It really makes you want to know who these people were, what happened to them, what they were life.

As far as bringing aliens into the story -- would be interesting, but please, it's just too much wild speculation without a speck of evidence to make any real case.

[MarcusGreyMantel]

I have been to the Mounds in the story. I climbed to the top of the largest and sat for a while. Talk about an interesting experence! I have also visited smaller mounds in southeast Ohio, and got the same experence. Although not as strong. I would like to go to the Serpent Mound in the far south of Ohio. I hear it is a "mystical" place. Gotta put the boy down for bed, type at ya all later

[Spunned]

Sounds like some experience, you've had there.. I wish I could try it out

[Harks]

Has anyone dug up some of these mounds or done sonar soundings of the area to check if there was anything inside the mounds? I did not see anything said if they did or didn't.

[Pax Unum]

Has anyone dug up some of these mounds or done sonar soundings of the area to check if there was anything inside the mounds? I did not see anything said if they did or didn't.

Fragments of red stone artifacts – bits of smoking pipes, decorative ear lobe spools and a figurine, all plucked out of rich prehistoric soil in the U.S. Midwest...

recent mineral analyses of red stone artifacts from Cahokia are upsetting an apple cart of important archaeological assumptions. Among other things, their study shoots down the idea that the great mound-building mecca in what now is southwestern Illinois traded extensively with distant cultures to the northwest.

Using X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic analysis, Thomas Emerson, an archaeologist, and Randall Hughes, a geologist, have discovered that most of the red stone fragments found at Cahokia are not made of the rare catlinite stone that originates in western Minnesota, but rather, are a more local Missouri red flint clay.

This finding shatters the long-held belief that the presence of catlinite in Cahokia proved that the Cahokian people traded on a large scale with their Upper Mississippi River Valley neighbors. The new tests also show that the catlinite that was found at Cahokia arrived after the great Cahokian culture had disappeared – with Oneota people in the 14th century or with later protohistoric or historic groups in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In their work, the UI team used a new piece of experimental equipment in the field: the Portable Infrared Mineral Analyzer (PIMA), which they are testing under a National Science Foundation grant. "The technique appears to be most useful as a first-line method of mineral identification and in those instances where destructive sampling is prohibited,"

Artifact analyses dispute assumptions about a prehistoric society

Mississippian Moundbuilders

Edited April 12, 2006 by Pax Unum

[Piney]

The Serpent Mound is from the Adena Culture who were primarily hunter-gatherers. Cahokia is Mississippian, who were amazing argriculturalists and would explain the explosion in population.

There are many tribal legends associated with the mounds. The Muskogean People (Natchez, Creek, Choctaw Chicasaw Houma, Seminole) tell that they were the Mississipian mound builders. The Nanticoke, Lenape, Mohican, and Shawnee which were all Algonquian and very close in linguistic relationship compared to other Algonquian tribes tell that they were the Tallegi and defeated in a great battle against a Algonquian and Iroquoian ( Iroquois, Tuscarora, Cherokee) alliance.

Lapi'che

[Watchers]

I just read up on this a few days ago. I haven't heard anyone else say this, but isn't it possible that the main purpose for all of the mounds is so that the populace could survive the major flooding? I mean after all, isn't Cahokia sitting right in the middle of a large flood plain?