Dr. Sarah E. Baires, assistant professor of anthropology at Eastern Connecticut State University, will deliver a lecture on March 9 at Norwalk Community College about Cahokia, a Medieval native American city that thrived in what is now the lowland floodplains of the Mississippi River, near St. Louis.
“Artist’s conception of the Mississippian culture Cahokia Mounds Site in Illinois. The illustration shows the large Monks Mound at the center of the site with the Grand Plaza to its south. This central precinct is encircled by a palisade. Three other plazas surround Monks Mound to the west, north and east. To the west of the western plaza is the Woodhenge circle of cedar posts.” — description by User Heironymous Rowe, who took this picture and posted it on Wikimedia Commons where
The lecture is sponsored by NCC’s Anthropology Club and will be held in GenRe Forum from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Seventy earthen mounds lie within a protected area of the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, the remains of Cahokia, once considered one of the great urban centers in the world.
At its heyday in AD 1050, Cahokia was the largest North American city north of Mexico, larger than London at the time. The religious, social and political center had an estimated population of 30,000 people, with public buildings, temples and plazas across the city. Cahokia grew, prospered and mysteriously declined within two centuries thereafter.
Dr. Baires’ research focuses on pre-Columbian Native American societies, in particular urban landscapes, religious beliefs, and social and political change. She has done extensive fieldwork and research regarding Cahokia including excavations and discovery of valuable artifacts.
For more information, please contact Ernest Wiegand at ewiegand@norwalk.edu.
— an announcement from Norwalk Community College
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Web links about Cahokia, from Darienite.com:
- Wikipedia article
- Cahokia Mounds state historic site website
- “Metropolitan Life on the Mississippi” Washington Post article, March 12, 1997
- “Cahokia: America’s Forgotten City” National Geographic, January 2011
- “Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City” Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History website