The Lost City of Cahokia

A thousand years before Columbus's men would land on the shores of America, a new city was sprouting on the floodplains of modern-day St. Louis, Missouri—one that would become, within the course of just five decades, the the largest city ever built north of Mexico. The city of Cahokia, at its peak between the 10th and 12th centuries, was spread over 16 square kilometers—puny by today’s standards, but at that time it was larger than many European cities, including London. Cahokia boasted a population between 10,000 and 20,000 people and had at least 120 monumental earthen mounds that acted as foundations for many great buildings. Today, fewer than 80 mounds survive. How and why Cahokia declined remains one of America's great mysteries. Monk’s Mound, the centerpiece of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Photo credit: The Guardian Cahokia was founded sometime around 600 CE by the Mississippians, a group of Native Americans who occupied much of the present-day south-eastern United States, from the Mississippi river to the shores of the Atlantic. These people didn’t have a written language, so we don’t know what they called themselves or their city. It was much later in the 17th century, the area was named Cahokia by the French explorers after a tribe living in the area. Archeological finds suggest that the city was laid around a vast urban center with clearly defines zones for administrative and ceremonial functions, elite compounds, residential neighborhoods, and even suburbs, all with similar orientation on the cardinal directions. Around this were farmlands were residents grew maize, beans and gourds. At the high point of its development, Cahokia was the largest urban center north of the great Mesoamerican cities in Mexico and Central America, and was larger than any subsequent city in the United States until the 1780s, when Philadelphia's population overtook Cahokia’s historical high.