Synopses & Reviews
At the turn of the last millennium, a powerful Native American civilization emerged and flourished in the American Midwest. By A.D. 1050 the population of its capital city, Cahokia, was larger than that of London. Without the use of the wheel, beasts of burden, or metallurgy, its technology was of the Stone Age, yet its culture fostered widespread commerce, refined artistic expression, and monumental architecture. The model for this urbane world was nothing less than the cosmos itself. The climax of their ritual center was a four-tiered pyramid covering fourteen acre rising a hundred feet into the skyand#8212;the tallest structure in the United States until 1867. This beautifully illustrated book traces the history of this six-square-mile area in the central Mississippi Valley from the Big Bang to the present.
Chappell seeks to answer fundamental questions about this unique, yet still relatively unknown space, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. How did this swampy land become so amenable to human life? Who were the remarkable people who lived here before the Europeans came? Why did the whole civilization disappear so rapidly? What became of the land in the centuries after the Mississippians abandoned it? And finally, what can we learn about ourselves as we look into the changing meaning of Cahokia through the ages?
To explore these questions, Chappell probes a wide range of sources, including the work of astronomers, geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Archival photographs and newspaper accounts, as well as interviews with those who work at the site and Native Americans on their annual pilgrimage to the site, bring the story up to the present.
Tying together these many threads, Chappell weaves a rich tale of how different people conferred their values on the same piece of land and how the transformed landscape, in turn, inspired different values in them-cultural, spiritual, agricultural, economic, and humanistic.
Synopsis
At the turn of the last millennium, a powerful Native American civilization emerged and flourished in the American Midwest. By AD 1050 the population of its capital city, Cahokia, was larger than that of London. Its technology was Stone Age, yet its culture fostered widespread commerce, refined artistic expression, and monumental architecture. The model for this urbane world was nothing less than the cosmos itself. This beautifully illustrated book traces the history of this six-square-mile area in the central Mississippi Valley from the Big Bang to the present.
Chappell probes a wide range of sources, including the work of astronomers, geographers, geologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Archival photographs and newspaper accounts, as well as interviews with Native Americans and workers at the site, bring the story up to the present. Tying together these many threads, Chappell weaves a rich tale of how different people conferred their values on the same piece of land and how the transformed landscape, in turn, inspired different values in them--cultural, spiritual, agricultural, economic, and humanistic.
"This is an illustrated history of one of the great North American cities. . . . In the author's words, Cahokia was a 'landscape cosmogram'--a rearrangement of earthly features to make a statement about how the people living there viewed the world. It was also a stupendous undertaking, comparable to the building of the pyramids."--Washington Post Book World
"Chappell captures the power of the present to create many pasts, exploring Cahokia and its many meanings from prehistory to the present. She takes us on a journey around its natural environment and reveals in Cahokia's sophisticated layout a sacred landscape of architecture, astronomy and spirituality. . . . This is an engaging, comprehensive and thoughtful account of one of America's most impressive ancient monuments."--Nick Saunders, New Scientist
About the Author
Sally A. Kitt Chappell, professor emerita in the Department of Art at DePaul University, is the author of Architecture and Planning of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White, 1912-1936, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and a contributor to the Travel section of the New York Times.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction: A Deep Time Study
1. Cahokia in Its Natural Setting: A Special Place within a Special Place
2. Human Beings Enter the Americas: Paleo-Indians, Archaic and Woodland Groups, and Emergent Mississippians
3. Cahokia: Cosmic Landscape Architecture
4. French Explorers, Trappers, Priests, and Monks
5. Nineteenth-Century Turmoil
6. Early Twentieth-Century Cahokia: Setting the Stage
7. Modern Cahokia: A Critical Mass at a Critical Time
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Credits for Illustrations
Index