The First People of the Mississippi Valley, Part 2: A Big Bang and First Contact

Send us Fan Mail A thousand years ago, the largest city north of Mexico rose from the floodplain across the river from present-day St. Louis. In part two of our look at Native America along the Mississippi, we trace Cahokia's explosive birth around 1050 CE — a planned metropolis of mounds, plazas, and processional roads aligned to the movements of the sun and moon. We'll piece together what we know about Monk's Mound, chunkey matches, the pilgrims' acropolis, and consider what the shell-bead ...