1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site

“The practice of human sacrifice in America’s largest prehistoric city, the remains of sacrificial victims at the ancient city of Cahokia reveal that those who were killed were not captives taken from outlying regions, as many archaeologists had believed. Instead, they may have been residents of the same community that killed them. When Cahokia was at its peak 900 years ago, it was the largest city in what’s now the United States, a metropolis of about 15,000 people in southwestern Illinois, whose economic and cultural influence reached from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. But one of the many mysteries lingering among the city’s ruins, just outside modern-day St. Louis, is a burial mound excavated in the 1960s and found to contain more than 270 bodies — almost all of them young women killed as victims of human sacrifice. Dated to between 1000 and 1100 CE, their remains were mostly buried in large pits, laid out in neat rows, and bearing few signs of physical trauma, perhaps killed by strangulation or blood-letting. But the mound also contained a striking group of outliers: a separate deposit of some 39 men and women, ranging in age from 15 to 45, who — unlike the rest — had been subjected to all manner of physical violence: brutal fractures, shot with stone points still embedded in their bones, even decapitation.” Ref

Human Sacrifice at Cahokia: Victims Were Locals, Not ‘Foreign’ Captives?

“The practice of human sacrifice in America’s largest prehistoric city was more subtle and complex than experts once thought, new research suggests. Recent studies into the remains of sacrificial victims at the ancient city of Cahokia reveal that those who were killed were not captives taken from outlying regions, as many archaeologists had believed. Instead, they may have been residents of the same community that killed them,’ reports Western Digs. An artist’s depiction shows central Cahokia around the year 1150 (Cahokia Mounds Museum Society/ Art Grossman) When Cahokia was at its peak 900 years ago, it was the largest city in what’s now the United States, a metropolis of about 15,000 people in southwestern Illinois, whose economic and cultural influence reached from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. But one of the many mysteries lingering among the city’s ruins, just outside modern-day St. Louis, is a burial mound excavated in the 1960s and found to contain more than 270 bodies – almost all of them young women killed as victims of human sacrifice. Dated to between 1000 and 1100 CE, their remains were mostly buried in large pits, laid out in neat rows, and bearing few signs of physical trauma, perhaps killed by strangulation or blood-letting. But the mound also contained a striking group of outliers: a separate deposit of some 39 men and women, ranging in age from 15 to 45, who – unlike the rest – had been subjected to all manner of physical violence: brutal fractures, shot with stone points still embedded in their bones, even decapitation. For more than 50 years, archaeologists have puzzled over the grisly scenes found in the mound, known as Mound 72. “It is the significant site in this region and foundational to our understanding of Mississippian culture within this region and beyond,” said Dr. Phil Slater, an anthropologist at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey who took part in the new study.” Ref

Above: The mass grave known as Feature 214, thought to be one of the earliest mass burials in the mound, contained 24 bodies arranged in two layers and dated to around the year 1000. (Photo: St. Louis Community College)
Below: An artist envisions a mass sacrifice of young women in Cahokia around 1000 CE that may have filled one of the more notorious graves in Mound 72 (Credit: Herb Roe) “One of the big questions raised by the finds at Mound 72 focused on the mass burial events. Those appear to be unique, certainly unique to have so many such features within a single small mound.” For decades, the prevailing theory has been that its victims were forcibly brought to Cahokia from regions under the city’s control, and sacrificed as offerings to its rulers, its dead, or its deities. “The initial interpretation of the burials of young women suggested they represented ‘tribute’ from outlying communities,” Slater said. “Our analysis provide[s] … evidence that suggests the young women may have come from within the region, if not from Cahokia itself.” What’s more, the research done by Slater and his colleagues finds that the same is true for the 39 victims of the more violent, traumatic deaths in the mound. They’re not only local, the results show; they also turn out to be the most biologically different from the rest of the dead found in the mound. And yet, they’re also the most similar to each other, suggesting that they may have been members of a unique, and perhaps isolated, population within Cahokia. Slater and colleagues Dr. Kristin Hedman and Dr. Andrew Thompson revisited Mound 72 with a focus on the victims’ teeth – studying both their chemistry and their physical structure. The team analyzed 203 teeth from 109 of the people found in 3 separate burials in the mound. Ref

“Among them: a grave known as Feature 214, thought to be one of the earliest mass burials in the mound, featuring 24 bodies arranged in two layers and dated to around the year 1000; and also Feature 105, dated to around 1050, where more than 50 were buried in two layers of two rows, aligned shoulder to shoulder; and finally Feature 229, which included two layers of human remains – an upper layer of 15 men and women, whose remains were gently laid to rest on cedar litters, and 229-lower – the mass grave of 39 men and women whose mutilated bodies appear to have been dumped, rather than peacefully interred. “They appear,” Slated said, “to have been lined up and pushed in.”
“We now have the opportunity to take another look at some of these [features] and challenge some of the earlier interpretations,” he added. “Who were the individuals buried in Mound 72 and what do their deaths and burials signify?” In their search for answers, the team looked, in part, for chemical clues in the victims’ teeth. Specifically, they wanted to measure the levels of the element strontium that they contained. Strontium occurs naturally in groundwater as it leaches in from local rock formations. But different regions have different levels of various strontium isotopes, depending on their geology.” Ref

Cahokia – Mound 72 as it appears today. So as humans eat and drink, the concentrations of strontium that are specific to the local food and water supply become bound in their teeth. In this way, teeth can be analyzed to reveal their owner’s geographical history, allowing scientists to determine whether people were born in the same region where they were buried, or whether they immigrated from elsewhere. This method holds particular promise for researching Cahokia, noted Dr. Thomas Emerson, director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, since the city’s rapid growth had been widely attributed to immigration from outlying areas. “With the development of strontium analysis, there became a way to actually test the immigration hypothesis by looking at the bodies of the people buried at Cahokia,” he said. And the results showed that, based on their chemical traces, the dead were largely, but not exclusively, local to the floodplain where Cahokia was built, known as the American Bottom. Of those buried in Feature 105, for instance, about 7 percent of the teeth revealed levels of strontium that were not consistent with the immediate Cahokia area. In Feature 214, 36 percent of the teeth turned out to have non-local signatures. And for those who had been carefully buried in the upper layer of Feature 229, 17 percent of the teeth contained non-local levels of strontium. But for the people buried below them, who had been violently killed and dumped, their teeth were all exclusively within the range of Cahokia’s strontium ratios – and they also displayed the smallest degree of variation in their chemistry. What’s more, Slater said, the physical measurements of their teeth revealed even more surprising results. The shapes and sizes of the mutilated victims’ teeth were uniquely similar to each other, and were also different from the morphologies of the teeth of the other victims. “The 229-lower feature stood out among the four [features], because it seems to have been composed of a distinct sub-population within Cahokia,” he said. “Both the strontium and dental data of the group show that they separate themselves from the rest of Mound 72.” Taken together, Slater said, the data suggest that these mutilated victims were all local to the Cahokia region, but also physically different in some ways from the general population. “It is possible that Feature 229-lower represents a small group that lived in the region – as is suggested by the strontium data – but was isolated from others for a long enough period of time to acquire similar dental characteristics that we tested for,” he said. Beyond the scope of those 39 individuals, the findings obtained throughout Mound 72 suggest that the 270 people buried there were not all immigrants, or captives from raids into distant territories, as some experts had suggested. Instead, it seems that the sacrificed were themselves Cahokians – or at least a relatively consistent mixture of immigrants and locals, with native Cahokians forming the majority of the group, a mixture found even in common, non-sacrificial graves in the city. It’s a prospect that opens up a new set of questions, Slater said. “On the surface, these results refute interpretations that these people were [killed as] tribute from outside communities and suggest that they were actually local people from within the American Bottom and part of the Cahokia population in some way,” he said. “However, their unique burial contexts indicate special – either good or bad – treatment in death. “This actually raises just as many questions as it answers: Why were these groups of people all buried at the same times? “Why were some being killed and buried, as in Feature 229-lower? “How were these groups integrated to the rest of Cahokia’s population socially or politically? “These are things we still don’t know.” As part of ongoing research called the Cahokia Collapse Project, the team is now planning to study strontium levels in other regions that interacted with Cahokia, in an effort to clarify where some of its immigrants might have come from. For now, Slater says, their research offers valuable new insights into the nature of life and death in what was once America’s largest city. “An important value of this specific [study] lies in providing multiple lines of evidence … to try and understand who these people were – and Cahokia at large,” Slater said. “It is also important to realize that just because someone has ‘answered’ a question previously, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t revisit it with a new perspective or new, improved methodology. “That’s part of the collective advancement of science.” The team reports their findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Ref

Cahokia

“The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed c. 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers 2,200 acres (890 ha), or about 3.5 square miles (9 km²), and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the city covered about 6 square miles (16 km²), included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions, and had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people. Cahokia was the largest and most influential urban settlement of the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies across much of what is now the Central and the Southeastern United States, beginning more than 1,000 years before European contact.” ref

“Today, the Cahokia Mounds are considered to be the largest and most complex archaeological site north of the great pre-Columbian cities in Mexico. Cahokia Mounds is a National Historic Landmark and a designated site for state protection. It is also one of the 25 UNESCO World Heritage Sites within the United States. The largest pre-Columbian earthen construction in the Americas north of Mexico, the site is open to the public and administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Division and supported by the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois state bicentennial, the Cahokia Mounds were selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component (AIA Illinois). It was recognized by USA Today Travel magazine, as one of the selections for ‘Illinois 25 Must See Places’.” ref

“Although some evidence exists of occupation during the Late Archaic period (around 1200 BCE) in and around the site, Cahokia as it is now defined was settled around 600 CE during the Late Woodland period. Mound building at this location began with the emergent Mississippian cultural period, around the 9th century CE. The inhabitants left no written records beyond symbols on pottery, marine shell, copper, wood, and stone, but the elaborately planned community, woodhenge, mounds, and burials reveal a complex and sophisticated society.” ref

“The city’s complex construction of earthen mounds required digging, excavation and transportation by hand using woven baskets. Construction made use of 55 million cubic feet (1.6 million cubic meters) of earth, and much of the work was accomplished over decades. Its highly planned large, smoothed-flat, ceremonial plazas, sited around the mounds, with homes for thousands connected by laid out pathways and courtyards, suggest the location served as a central religious pilgrimage city. The city’s original name is unknown. The mounds were later named after the Cahokia tribe, a historic Illiniwek people living in the area when the first French explorers arrived in the 17th century. As this was centuries after Cahokia was abandoned by its original inhabitants, the Cahokia tribe was not necessarily descended from the earlier Mississippian-era people. Most likely, multiple indigenous ethnic groups settled in the Cahokia Mounds area during the time of the city’s apex.” ref

“Historian Daniel Richter notes that the apex of the city occurred during the Medieval Warming Period. This period appears to have fostered an agricultural revolution in upper North America, as the three-fold crops of maize, beans (legumes), and gourds (squash) were developed and adapted or bred to the temperate climates of the north from their origins in Mesoamerica. Richter also notes that Cahokia’s advanced development coincided with the development in the Southwest of the Chaco Canyon society, which also produced large-scale works in an apparent socially stratified society. The decline of the city coincides with the Little Ice Age, although by then, the three-fold agriculture remained well-established throughout temperate North America.” ref

Rise and peak (11th and 12th centuries)

“Cahokia became the most important center for the Mississippian culture. This culture was expressed in settlements that ranged along major waterways across what is now the Midwest, Eastern, and Southeastern United States. Cahokia was located in a strategic position near the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers. It maintained trade links with communities as far away as the Great Lakes to the north and the Gulf Coast to the south, trading in such exotic items as copper, Mill Creek chert, shark teeth, and lightning whelk shells. Mill Creek chert, most notably, was used in the production of hoes, a high demand tool for farmers around Cahokia and other Mississippian centers. Cahokia’s control of the manufacture and distribution of these hand tools was an important economic activity that allowed the city to thrive. Mississippian culture pottery and stone tools in the Cahokian style were found at the Silvernale site near Red Wing, Minnesota, and materials and trade goods from Pennsylvania, the Gulf Coast, and Lake Superior have been excavated at Cahokia.” ref

“At the high point of its development, Cahokia was the largest urban center north of the great Mesoamerican cities in Mexico and Central America. Home to about 1,000 people before circa 1050, its population grew rapidly after that date. According to a 2007 study in Quaternary Science Reviews, “Between CE 1050 and 1100, Cahokia’s population increased from between 1,400 and 2,800 people to between 10,200 and 15,300 people”, an estimate that applies only to a 1.8-square-kilometer (0.69 sq mi) high-density central occupation area. Studies of Cahokia’s rise see large-scale immigration as an essential contributor to the city’s initial rapid growth. Archaeologists estimate the city’s population at between 6,000 and 40,000 at its peak, with more people living in outlying farming villages that supplied the main urban center.” ref

“As a result of archeological excavations in the early 21st century, new residential areas were found to the west of Cahokia; this discovery increased estimates of historic area population. If the highest population estimates are correct, Cahokia was larger than any subsequent city in the United States until the 1780s, when Philadelphia’s population grew beyond 40,000. Its population may have been larger than contemporaneous London and Paris. One of the major problems that large centers like Cahokia faced was keeping a steady supply of food, perhaps exacerbated by droughts from CE 1100–1250. A related problem was waste disposal for the dense population, and Cahokia is believed to have become unhealthy from polluted waterways. Because it was such an unhealthy place to live, Snow believed that the town had to rely on social and political attractions to bring in a steady supply of new immigrants; otherwise, the town’s death rate would have caused it to be abandoned earlier.” ref

Decline (13th and 14th centuries)

“The population of Cahokia began to decline during the 13th century, and the site was abandoned by around 1350. Scholars have proposed environmental factors, such as environmental degradation through overhunting, deforestation and pollution, and climatic changes, such as increased flooding and droughts, as explanations for abandonment of the site. However, more recent research suggests that there is no evidence of human-caused erosion or flooding at Cahokia. Political, economic, or cultural problems may also have contributed to the community’s decline. Thomas Emerson and Kristin Hedman argue that Cahokia’s large immigrant population was a factor in the city’s ultimate fragmentation, as differing languages, customs, and religions obstructed the creation of a cohesive Cahokian cultural identity.” ref

“Analyses of Cahokian burial sites and the associated remains have also shown that many Cahokians were not native to the city or its immediate surrounding region. These immigrants were sometimes buried separately from native residents, a possible indicator of weak integration along ethnic lines. It is likely that social and environmental factors combined to produce the conditions that led people to leave Cahokia. Another possible cause is invasion by outside peoples. Many theories since the late 20th century propose conquest-induced political collapse as the primary reason for Cahokia’s abandonment. Evidence of warfare found is defensive wooden stockade and watchtowers that enclosed Cahokia’s main ceremonial precinct. However, the palisade may have been more for ritual or formal separation than for military purposes, but bastioned palisades almost always indicate warfare. As Cahokia’s population shrank over the 13th century, Cahokia’s palisade was rebuilt several times to encompass increasingly-smaller portions of the city.” ref

“Diseases transmitted among the large, dense urban population are another possible cause of decline. Similarly, health issues like pellagra are known to arise through maize-intense diets like Cahokia’s. However, evidence tying nutritional deficiencies to a broader societal collapse has not been conclusively identified. At Cahokia’s beginning around CE 1050, hominy was made though nixtamalization that made the maize more nutritious. Recent research indicates that early Cahokians nixtamalized maize but then stopped nixtamalizing maize around CE 1200. Intense reliance on maize that is not nixtamalized may result in pellagra and death. Isotope analysis of burial remains at Cahokia has revealed iron-deficiency anemia and tooth enamel defects potentially stemming from Cahokia’s reliance on maize.” ref

“Together with these factors, researchers found evidence in 2015 of major floods at Cahokia, so severe as to flood dwelling places. Analysis of sediment from beneath Horseshoe Lake has revealed that two major floods occurred in the period of settlement at Cahokia, in roughly 1100–1260 and 1340–1460. While flooding may have occurred early in the rise of the city, it seems not to have deterred the city builders; to the contrary, it appears they took steps such as creating channels, dikes, and levees that protected at least the central city throughout its inhabited history. In another indication of flood mitigation efforts, Cahokians dispersed their agricultural lands among both lowland and upland fields, thereby reducing the chances that a single cataclysmic flood would wipe out the city’s food supply. Archeologists discovered evidence in 2020 that there was a population rebound following Cahokia’s population minimum in 1400, with the population reaching a population maximum in 1650 and then declining again in 1700.” ref

Archaic period	8000 BC– 1000 BC
Formative stage	1000 BC– AD 500
Woodland period	1000 BC– AD 1000
Classic stage	AD 500–1200
Post-Classic stage	after 1200

1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site

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