Cahokia Was One Of The First Cities In North America, Located Near Modern-Day St. Louis, And Larger Than London In Its Heyday

Most of Cahokia is buried under 19th and 20th-century developments, such as a highway and the city of St. Louis.

Throughout the past decades, efforts to preserve the remains have prevailed, and now Cahokia’s center is part of a state historic site.

At Cahokia, the best example of architecture is the “Monks Mound.” It is 100 feet tall and named for the group of Trappist monks who lived near it during ancient times.

The mound was built with four terraces, and its base covers roughly 17 acres. Large postholes at the top indicate that a wooden temple once stood in that spot.

Monks Mound was connected to a grand plaza and several smaller mounds via a wooden palisade that stretched for two miles.

A series of five circles sits to the west of Monks Mound. They were made of red cedar wood posts and probably served as a calendar to mark important dates.

Another mound less than a half mile south of Monks Mound contains the remains of 272 people. Many of them were sacrificed. In one instance, 39 people were lined up at the edge of a pit and executed one by one.

Since no written records about Cahokia exist, it’s hard for researchers to get a full picture of the lives of Cahokia’s residents.

Fortunately, there has been much archaeological evidence to help them fit some of the pieces together.