White settlers buried the truth about the Midwest’s mysterious mound cities(smithsonianmag.com)
smithsonianmag.com
White settlers buried the truth about the Midwest’s mysterious mound cities
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/white-settlers-buried-truth-about-midwests-mysterious-mound-cities-180968246/?no-ist
3 comments
I don't get the sense that that's what the headline is alluding to. It refers to the bias in interpreting the archeological evidence at the time.
> "The splendor of the mounds was visible to the first white people who described them. But they thought that the American Indian known to early white settlers could not have built any of the great earthworks that dotted the midcontinent. So the question then became: Who built the mounds?"
The article itself confirms what you found in wikipedia in the first paragraph:
> "Around 1100 or 1200 A.D., the largest city north of Mexico was Cahokia, sitting in what is now southern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Built around 1050 A.D. and occupied through 1400 A.D., Cahokia had a peak population of between 25,000 and 50,000 people."
Yeah, the headline is more "exciting" than I would have written, but that seems to be the trend nowadays. My skin is slowly thickening to that.
> "The splendor of the mounds was visible to the first white people who described them. But they thought that the American Indian known to early white settlers could not have built any of the great earthworks that dotted the midcontinent. So the question then became: Who built the mounds?"
The article itself confirms what you found in wikipedia in the first paragraph:
> "Around 1100 or 1200 A.D., the largest city north of Mexico was Cahokia, sitting in what is now southern Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. Built around 1050 A.D. and occupied through 1400 A.D., Cahokia had a peak population of between 25,000 and 50,000 people."
Yeah, the headline is more "exciting" than I would have written, but that seems to be the trend nowadays. My skin is slowly thickening to that.
The population of Cahokia began to decline during the thirteenth century, and the site was eventually abandoned around 1300[18] The area around it was not reoccupied by indigenous tribes[19] to 1350.[20] Scholars have proposed environmental factors, such as over-hunting, deforestation, and flooding, as explanations for abandonment of the site.[18]
Another possible cause is invasion by outside peoples, though the only evidence of warfare found so far are the defensive wooden stockade and watchtowers that enclosed Cahokia's main ceremonial precinct. Due to the lack of other evidence for warfare, the palisade may have been more for ritual or formal separation than for military purposes. Diseases transmitted among the large, dense urban population are another possible cause of decline. Many theories since the late 20th century propose conquest-induced political collapse as the primary reason for Cahokia's abandonment.[21]
Ahh, it was those white settlers in the year 1300.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia