Cahokia+and+Etzanoa

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See World History II.12 for more on European exploration in the Americas


 * Cahokia, located in present-day Illinois, was the center of what anthropologists call "Mississippian culture," agricultural communities throughout the Midwestern and southeastern United States between 1000 and 1400. **

For a perspective on Native American history in the Americas prior to European encounters, see //Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi//, Timothy R. Pauketat, Viking, 2009.

See also, [|The Mississippians of Cahokia], John Hendrix, //New York Times,// February 28, 2016

Cahokia is now the largest archaeological site in the United States and Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site has been designated a world heritage site.
 * It had a population in excess of 10,000, with at least twenty to thirty thousand more in outlying towns and farming settlements that for fifty miles in every direction (Pauketat, 2009, p. 2).
 * Located just east of present-day St. Louis, Missouri.
 * North America's largest pyramidal-mound complex. "Monks Mound is larger at its base than the Great Pyramid of Khufu, Egypt's largest" ("Cahokia: America's Forgotten City," //National Geographic//, January, 2011, p. 138). Mounds were destroyed by the builders of St. Louis before the Civil War.
 * Monks Mound is filled with 50 million cubic feet of hand-moved dirt (Hendrix, 2016, p.13).
 * Construction has been radiocarbon dated to about 1050. The centerpiece was the size of 35 football fields, the Grand Plaza, the largest public space ever created north of Mexico. At its center, a packed clay pyramid that would reach 100 feet high, surpassed only by the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan and the great pyramid at Cholula, in Mexico (Pauketat, 2009, p. 23).

[|Cahokia: America's Forgotten City], National Geographic (January 2011)

[|A Pre-Columbian American City] from History Now

[|New Insights into the Curious Disappearance of the Cahokia Mounds Builders], St. Louis Public Radio

[|Cahokia Mounds,] Illinois Adventure, WTVP on YouTube

[|Mississippian Culture and Aztalan,] Turning Points in Wisconsin History, Wisconsin Historical Society



For more, see [|Cahokia Woodhenge]

Diagram to the left shows solstice and equinox sunset and sunrise positions at the [|Mound 72 Woodhenge]



Etzanoa

 * This site may surpass even Cahokia as the largest Native American settlement in the United States. **

Etzanoa has baffled historians and archaeologists alike for over 400 years. The rumored city was supposed to be home to over 20,000 permanent citizens at it's peak in 1601. It has since been found. Donald Blakeslee, an archaeologist from Wichita State University is sure that he has found it, in Arkansas City, Kansas.


 * Has a High School Student Discovered Long Lost 17th Century Civilization in Kansas? **

Kansas Archaeologist Rediscovers Lost Native American City (NPR, May 10, 2017

Etzanoa: The Great Settlement, Wichita State University Alumni Magazine (May 2016)

Here is a [|documentary] about the Native American city Etzanoa.

Click here to [|read] up on the newly 'found' city of Etzanoa.

There was a military encounter between Native Americans from Etzanoa and Spanish troops led by the conquistador Juan de Oriate in 1601.

Cannon fragments found at the site confirm the battle.

[|Here's a link to information about the battle.]