Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi | 
pickI've been reading Cahokia for a while, but it still seems fair to include it in my #BookSpinBingo. For a short book, it took a while to get through, and I found that it took quite a while to get down to business and start discussing archaeology. Once it did, that was fascinating, though!
Hm. That was most of a chapter of reconstruction, without telling me where the evidence comes from, which is not reassuring...
I'm barely reading at the moment, with my exams coming up and causing stress-stress-stress, but I am enjoying this in small doses -- Cahokia's not an area I know much about at all.
If anyone has recs for books about/adjacent to archaeology, I'd love that. I've read a fair amount in that genre in the past, but probably easiest to just rec me stuff anyway and I'll sift through for stuff I haven't read!
pickIncredible history that we seldom think or are taught about, the history in our own back yard—literally, parts of this site were bulldozed to build residential neighborhoods. This book discusses the history & archaeology of Cahokia, North America‘s “largest pyramidal-mound complex,” a city once home to as many as 20,000 inhabitants. Human sacrifice, monumental celestial timepieces & more make for a fascinating, if sometimes dense, read.
This is true.
(I also really appreciate all the drama in this description.)
It‘s May 21st and it‘s 47 degrees!!! And that‘s basically the high for the day. The only thing to do on a morning like this is to take a few minutes for some tea and a good book.
My next nonfiction read is about Cahokia, an ancient site located just outside of St. Louis in southern Illinois. This Native American city emerged about 1000 years ago and was once home to 200+ packed-earth pyramids (mounds) and as many as 20,000 residents. By 1400, only 400 years later, it was abandoned. Fascinating to read & think about all of this while wandering through downtown Chicago.
pickI really enjoyed this exploration of Cahokia's culture and how archeologists have been working on this puzzle for generations. Although it leaves you with a lot of questions (perhaps more than you started with) about the origins and fate of this once hugely influential city, that's because of all the work that still has to be done in this area.
Beads and spitting were also used as a kind of honored greeting, confusing Europeans, who did not take kindly to being spat on.
One chapter in and enjoying learning about a little known culture shift in the 11th century
