🔄From the archive: 🌍🏛️ Discover the mystery of why Native Americans abandoned Cahokia's massive mounds in Illinois. Uncover the secrets of this ancient civilization. NativeAmerican Cahokia archaeology
“Environmental problems could put a lot of stress on whatever cultural issues might have been going on,” explains White. “And that might relate to economic, societal, political sort of problems — a combination of pressures that were exerted on this area.”of people that lived in the area at its peak, the Mississippians, lived in a largely agricultural society.
What’s more, pollen records from the sediment cores suggest that the area saw an ecosystem shift around that time, too, as evidence for trees gives way to evidence for grasses. And who lived in grasslands? Bison. “It’s a story that isn’t all the way over,” says White. “We keep just closing the pages after 1400 … [but] it’s ongoing.”By the way, the name Cahokia? It’s not from the mound-building Mississippians. When French missionaries arrived in the area in the early 1700s, they were met by the Cahokia tribe — a subgroup of the larger Illinois Confederation. The name stuck, and now “Cahokia Mounds” is a bit of a misleading moniker for the archaeological site.
The evidence in the new study can neither confirm nor deny that the members of the Illinois Confederation that lived at the site from 1400 to 1700 were, in fact, the namesake Cahokia tribe that had first contact with the French. If it were the case, though, it’d bring the story of the Cahokia site full circle across its history.
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