<< Image Pages >> East Saint Louis Mound Center - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in Great Lakes Midwest

Submitted by bat400 on Wednesday, 18 July 2012  Page Views: 5379

Multi-periodSite Name: East Saint Louis Mound Center Alternative Name: 11S706
Country: United States Region: Great Lakes Midwest Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: East Saint Louis, IL
Latitude: 38.642000N  Longitude: 90.152W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 1 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 3

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East Saint Louis Mound Center
East Saint Louis Mound Center submitted by durhamnature : Cross-section, from "Cahokia Mounds" via archive.org (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient City in St. Claire County, Illinois.
The East St. Louis Mound Center developed at a similar time as the nearby Cahokia Mounds. Construction of the Mounds, plazas, and buildings began around 1050 AD and the large public works appear to have been abandoned by 1170 AD. There were as many as 50 mounds.

In general artifact finds are similar to those of the Cahokia group, including ceremonial caches of finely worked stone projectile points, carved figures, and more utilitarian finds. East St. Louis group was never as large as Cahokia, although the number of house footprints (tenches and post holes) indicates a population of 3000 - 5000 people. The nature of the relationship between the two groups, and to the St. Louis Mound group on the west side of the Mississippi River is not currently understood.

The site appears to have been abandoned after a massive fire. Finds provide indications that the fire was deliberately set, but not necessarily as part of warfare or internal unrest. For instance, finds of uneaten corn, in 'token' amounts that would not indicate a storeroom burning have led to some to speculate the village houses were destroyed in a ceremony. Potentially, to ritually mark the abandonment of the town, for reasons that are not yet understood.

Some researchers (including Timothy Pauketat, Joeseph Galloy, Thomas Emerson, and John Kelly) believe the three Mound Centers were joined and served as a central ceremonial and administrative center to a much larger area of smaller settlements, farmsteads, and craft centers, In others words, they functioned as a city, producing an influx of peoples of multiple ethnic and language groups, spurring trade, and having a large influence on religious and technological culture up and down the Mississippi River and its regional watershed. Other researches (whom Galloy refers to as "minimalists') concede the size of each center, but doubt that the society was as complex as to be considered as as a city.

The faint remnants of some of the mound bases remain. All other traces were destroyed, often for fill as St. Louis and East St. Louis developed in the 1800's. Much of the site was, itself, buried under additional fill and developed with modern streets, buildings, and the huge National City Stockyards complex. Much of this modern development has now been demonished or abandoned. The digs uncovering the ancient town are being performed in advance of a new bridge to be built as an additional crossing at the Mississippi River.

The location given is toward the northern portion of the town concentration and does not represent the location of any particular archaeological feature.

Sources:

Susan Caba, "The Beginnings of Urbanism?,'"
American Archaeology, Spring 2011.

Joseph Galloy, "The East Saint Louis Mound Center: America's Original 'Second City,'"
The Cahokian, Fall 2011.

Powell Archaeological Research Center Newsletter, Summer-Fall 2008.

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"East Saint Louis Mound Center" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Epic Fire Marked ‘Beginning of the End’ for Culture of Cahokia, New Digs Suggest by bat400 on Friday, 21 November 2014
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Excavations in the Midwest have turned up evidence of a massive ancient fire that likely marked “the beginning of the end” for what was once America’s largest city, archaeologists say.

900 years ago, this was the heart of Greater Cahokia, a civilization whose trade routes and religious influence stretched from the Great Lakes to the Deep South, and whose culture shaped the lifeways of the Plains and Southern Indians.

Here, researchers with the Illinois State Archaeological Survey have discovered a widespread layer of charcoal and burned artifacts among the foundations of ancient structures — evidence of a great and sudden conflagration that consumed perhaps as many as 100 buildings.

While there’s only “circumstantial evidence” as to what caused the fire, the researchers say, what’s even more striking is that the event seems to mark an ominous turning point in Cahokian culture.
The structures destroyed by the fire were never rebuilt, the excavations showed. Meanwhile, other large, important buildings, like distinctive ceremonial “lodges” or houses for local elites, stopped appearing altogether throughout the region. And soon after the fire, a great palisade wall went up around the nearby city center — known to archaeologists as Downtown Cahokia — most likely for protection.

“My colleagues and I believe that we have pinpointed a major turning point in ancient Cahokia’s history,” writes Dr. Tim Pauketat, archaeologist at the University of Illinois, in a statement.
“We have found, we think, the beginning of the end of this American Indian city.”

The end, in this case, began at a site known today as the East St. Louis precinct, a large walled compound some 10 kilometers from Downtown Cahokia that was likely the site of important civic and religious ceremonies. The compound included dozens of pole-and-thatch structures, along with a large leveled plaza, and at least two pyramids made of packed earth.

Inside some of the buildings, instead of the usual wares of daily life, the scientists found pigment stones, crystals, and “unusual” half-spheres made of fired red clay — items thought to be key to Cahokian rituals.

Many sites were also littered with uneaten corn, yet not enough to suggest that it was being stored there. Instead, Pauketat conjectures, it and other goods may have been put there in “token amounts,” as if made in offering.

Radiocarbon dates of the charred remains place the fire at around 1170 CE, near the midpoint of Cahokia’s century-long prime.

Decades’ worth of excavations all around Greater Cahokia have shown evidence of economic hard times and political strife in the 1100s that could have led to instability — even rebellion.

For its part, however, the research team suspects that the fire may have been set intentionally, by Cahokians themselves, for ritual purposes. It could have been done to commemorate the burial of elites possibly interred in a nearby mound, for instance, though this can never be confirmed since the mound was demolished by settlers in the 1870s.

What’s more, soil layers above the burned ruins show that the sites were carefully cleaned and maintained after the fire — scorched earth and charcoal having been neatly swept in to fill the foundations.

After the fire, the team found, a handful of earthen pyramids were built in the East St. Louis precinct, but the construction of wooden structures stopped.

Meanwhile, they note, other excavations have found that building patterns in the farming communities surrounding East St. Louis also changed around this time, hinting at a major cultural shift.

“Before 1170, the East St. Louis site was heavily populated, and the Cahokians living there and across the Metro-East region were known for their special … religious buildings or elite houses,” Pauketat writes.


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