Cahokia's Lost City Analysis
Running head: Cahokia, America’s Lost City?
Cahokia, America’s Lost City?
Jennifer Sanchez
Professor Chryst, Eng 115
Abstract
Have you ever heard of Cahokia? In casual conversation, almost no one outside the St. Louis area has.
Cahokia, America’s Lost City?
Cahokia was the center, possibly the origin, of what anthropologists call Mississippian culture, a collection of agricultural communities that reached across the American Midwest and Southeast starting before A.D. 1000 and peaking around the 13th century. The idea that American Indians could have built something resembling a city was so foreign to European settlers, that when they discovered the mounds of Cahokia, the largest of which is a ten-story earthen colossus composed of more than 22 million cubic feet of soil, they commonly thought they must have been the work of a foreign civilization. Phoenicians or Vikings perhaps. Even to this day, the idea of an Indian city runs so contrary to American notions of Indian life that we can 't seem to absorb it, and perhaps it 's this ignorance that has led …show more content…
and two centuries later, the entire site had been abandoned. Though the fate of the Cahokia Indians remains unknown, theories include climate changes, war, disease, and drought. Archeologists continue to be puzzled by the fact that there are no legends, records, nor mention of the once grand city in the lore of other local tribes, including the Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Quapaw. This strange silence has led some experts to theorize that something particularly dreadful happened at the site, for which the other tribes wished to forget. Is this why we are not educated about Cahokia? Or is the European belief that Native Americans could never have built such a large and thriving metropolis the reason we are ignorant to this very important part of our history? Have you ever heard of
Cahokia, America’s Lost City?
Jennifer Sanchez
Professor Chryst, Eng 115
Abstract
Have you ever heard of Cahokia? In casual conversation, almost no one outside the St. Louis area has.
Cahokia, America’s Lost City?
Cahokia was the center, possibly the origin, of what anthropologists call Mississippian culture, a collection of agricultural communities that reached across the American Midwest and Southeast starting before A.D. 1000 and peaking around the 13th century. The idea that American Indians could have built something resembling a city was so foreign to European settlers, that when they discovered the mounds of Cahokia, the largest of which is a ten-story earthen colossus composed of more than 22 million cubic feet of soil, they commonly thought they must have been the work of a foreign civilization. Phoenicians or Vikings perhaps. Even to this day, the idea of an Indian city runs so contrary to American notions of Indian life that we can 't seem to absorb it, and perhaps it 's this ignorance that has led …show more content…
and two centuries later, the entire site had been abandoned. Though the fate of the Cahokia Indians remains unknown, theories include climate changes, war, disease, and drought. Archeologists continue to be puzzled by the fact that there are no legends, records, nor mention of the once grand city in the lore of other local tribes, including the Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Quapaw. This strange silence has led some experts to theorize that something particularly dreadful happened at the site, for which the other tribes wished to forget. Is this why we are not educated about Cahokia? Or is the European belief that Native Americans could never have built such a large and thriving metropolis the reason we are ignorant to this very important part of our history? Have you ever heard of