About one thousand years ago, Native Americans built hundreds of earthen platform mounds, plazas, residential areas, and other types of monuments in the vicinity of present-day St. Louis. This sprawling complex, known to archaeologists as Cahokia, was the dominant cultural, ceremonial, and trade center north of Mexico for centuries. This stimulating collection of essays casts new light on the remarkable accomplishments of Cahokia.

Timothy R. Pauketat, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is the author of The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America.

 

Thomas E. Emerson is director of the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program and an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is coeditor of Late Woodland Societies: Tradition and Transformation across the Midcontinent.

"This is an excellent volume. It is well organized and edited, and the individual contributions provide lots of data and provocative ideas. The book will serve as an important springboard for future research on Cahokian social history."—American Anthropologist

"The book consists of thirteen essays that together constitute a complex and superbly crafted social history of Cahokia. . . . The contributors have written provocative and, for the most part, accessible essays that are both refreshing in their propositions and important in their conclusions."—Journal of Southern History

"This informative book about Cahokia is also a rich source for theories and techniques applicable to archaeological and historical records elsewhere."—William Gustav Gartner, Historical Geography