Cahokia

Starred review from August 3, 2009
Author and anthropologist Pauketat (Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions) locates a civilizational "big bang" in the Mississippi River valley of 1050 CE, where "social life, political organization, religious belief, art, and culture were radically transformed" by a highly ambitious group of American Indians and their capital city, Cahokia, located east of what is now St. Louis. In this illuminating text, Pauketat examines the life, death, and rediscovery of this vast urban population and their game-changing cultural innovations (ranging from innocuous but influential sports like "chunkey" to large-scale reenactments of mythical stories, featuring bloody human sacrifice). Page by page, Pauketat compiles the fascinating details of a complex archeological puzzle; explaining the study of cross-cultural goddess worship, cave art, hand tools and games, this volume doubles as a crash-course in the archeological method. Pauketat's academic approach responsibly invites opposing viewpoints, and his writing is rich in you-are-there detail, making this an archeological adventure suitable for pre-Columbian enthusiasts as well as inquisitive laymen.

June 1, 2009
The latest entry in the Penguin Library of American Indian History traces the history and evolving theories about the large city of Cahokia, which sprang up near the current St. Louis, Mo., around 1050 CE.

Largely avoiding academic jargon, Pauketat (Anthropology/Univ. of Illinois; Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions, 2007, etc.) sketches the absorbing story of these people whose enormous earthen structures were for decades assailed by farmers' plows, urban sprawl, the highway system and ignorant neglect. The"3200 acres of great pyramids, spacious plazas, thatched-roof temples, houses, astronomical observatories, and planned neighborhoods" now compose Cahokia Mounds State Park. Scholars estimate that more than 10,000 people once lived in Cahokia (many thousands more were in outlying settlements), a city that emerged so suddenly that Pauketat uses the term"big bang" to describe its advent. He explores various theories for its creation—the timely appearance of a supernova in 1054 might have been a significant factor—and describes how the influential Cahokian culture spread throughout North America. The author is careful to credit his scholarly ancestors in Cahokian studies, including Preston Holder, Melvin Fowler and Warren Wittry. Pauketat describes the enormous cultural significance of the game of chunkey (spears thrown at rolling stone balls), then zeroes in on some key earthen mounds and the bounties they've yielded—especially Mound 72, where multiple human burials were unearthed, including some personages so prominent that they became invaluable in understanding Cahokian politics and theology. Archaeologists also discovered a pit containing evidence of vast feasts, evidence buried so deeply that the remains still reeked. Among the most engaging late-emerging theories: the significance of women along the full range of the cultural spectrum—from human sacrificial offering to day-laborer to goddess.

A happy marriage of professional scholarship and childlike enthusiasm.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2009
In the middle of the eleventh century, a great civilization, centered on the city of Cahokia, near modern-day St. Louis, was poised to flower, prosper, and spread its influence across the eastern half of North America. The city of Cahokia itself was comparable in cultural brilliance to the great urban centers of Mesoamerica. What were the sources of this civilization and what can we glean about the lives of its people? Anthropology professor Pauketat utilizes the latest revelations uncovered by historians and archaelogists to write a compact but thorough survey of this powerful but enigmatic culture. He acknowledges the limits of research, since Cahokians left no written records, and potentially valuable artifacts have been looted over the centuries. Still, some of Pauketats provocative speculations are credible. He asserts that a cultural big bang in the eleventh century, rather than a gradual evolution, molded Cahokia. He paints a portrait of a technologically advanced, thriving society that, like its Mesoamerican counterparts, practiced human sacrifice. This is an interesting and informative explanation of a fascinating but still puzzling civilization.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)