The Mississippian Cultures

Cahokia tablet. This incised sandstone tablet was found beneath the East Lobes of Monk's Mound, which date from the 1300's. Possibly related to a burial, the tablet depicts an "eagle dancer." The figure appears to wear a mask and a wing like apparatus on his left arm. A similar style is known from Etowah with a date no earlier than 1300. Cahokia Museum.
At left is the reverse side of the same tablet (above)
Stockade, reconstructed east of Monk's Mound. About 400 acres of Cahokia, probably only the innermost central city, was surrounded by a stockade. This stockade which crossed a plaza east of Monk's Mound, was rebuilt four times, with bastions with raised platforms interspersed at 70 foot intervals. Wooden stockades regularly occur at Mississippian centers.
Line drawing of perforated, incised pottery disc. This disc, found near the east section of the stockade, was incised with human profiles wearing different expressions and hairstyles.
"Woodhenge," west of Monk's Mound. Around A.D. 1000 four circles of wooden posts were built. Four of the original 49 posts have been reconstructed. These consisted of 48 posts with a central post. The latter was not in the true center of the circle but five feet to the east of center. This was probably a correction for the latitude of Cahokia in A.D. 1000, because the pole on the left marks the place of the summer solstice sunrise, the middle pole, the equinoctial sunrises, and the right pole, the winter solstice sunrise in 1000.

From the center observation post, the middle post sights directly on the southwest comer of the first terrace of Monk's Mound. The significance of this fact to the Cahokians is impossible to ascertain.


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