Mound+Builders

The mound builders were Indians native to the Mississippi river area. There are artifacts from them in southern Mississippi all the way to Ohio and even in some of the eastern states. On of the most complete civilizations found from the mound builders is Cahokia near present day Saint Louis, Ill. Cahokia was inhabited from about 700 A.D. to 1400 A.D. Archeologists believe that at its peak 10,000 to 20.000 people lived at Cahokia. The city nearly covered 6 square miles. Over the time 120 mounds were built while houses were arranged in rows around plazas with agriculture fields were outside the city.

The fate of the prehistoric city and its inhabitants are unknown. The Cahokians began to leave around 1200 A.D. by 1400 the site was eventually abandoned where the people went or why the left is still unknown. A depletion of sources is the most likely cause of the leaving of the Cahokia. There is also record of a climate change after 1200 A.D. which may have caused so0me of their crops to not grow.

In West Virginia there are mounds that have been discovered that have burial chambers in them. These chambers contained human skeletons and jewelry serving a purpose like an Egyptian Pyramid. Many of the old mounds were discovered in the early 1800’s

Back in the Middle Ages while the Europeans were enjoying the Renaissance era, Native American tribes that lived along the Mississippi River and it's tributaries were busy developing there own culture and technology. These older Native Americans who were known as the Mississippian Indians, but then the Mississippian indians developed a unique way of building, they started making mounds of dirt in which they could put a building onto if the mound was sufficient which was a quite interesting thing, some archeologists think that they were built for spiritual purposes, whatever the reason it was a quite amazing thing. Some mounds were just piles of dirt some were square or in some cases in the shape of different animals they saw like a snake or a bird. And by building these great mounds these certain Indians were from then on called Mound Builders, some of the mounds they built were truly unique, there most famous mound is called Emerald Mound, it got that name from it's emerald color from the grass that grows on it. Yet that wasn't there only big accomplishment some mounds were anywhere from 20-50 ft tall sometimes which if you think for early Indians that was quite an accomplishment. So in the end the Mound Builders were truly magnificent people, many of there mounds still stand today.