The Cahokia chiefdom

About this book

Encompassing more than 100 earthen mounds that were constructed during the eleventh through fourteenth centuries, Cahokia is the centerpiece of an area east of St. Louis uncommonly rich in archaeological sites. Because the mounds at Cahokia are more numerous than at any other Mississippian period site in North America, scholars have long believed that they were constructed by a populous, politically centralized, economically differentiated society supported by a vast hinterland. Drawing on his own extensive surveys and excavations, and on a wide array of research that has been conducted in the central Mississippi Valley during the past several decades, George R. Milner argues that, while clearly impressive for its time, Cahokia-area society differed little in its basic organization from the smaller, less complex chiefdoms that dotted the southern Eastern Woodlands. He demonstrates that the many mounds, the focus of so much archaeological attention, could have been constructed with the labor of far fewer people than previously supposed. In The Cabokia Chiefdom, Milner provides a comprehensive view of a chiefdom that, despite its impressive architecture, was not nearly as densely settled or complex as conventional wisdom would have us believe.