Cahokia : : Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi

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Fascinating, leaves you wanting more. submitted by deets on September 7, 2011, 2:35pm I checked this book out after seeing it in the catalog without knowing what to expect. The author has some clearly stated animosity towards the "white man"'s perceptions of native americans, but also gives us real evidence to support his assertions. This is anthropology at its best, giving us insight into how little we thoroughly understand what and whom were here before white settlers came.

This book really sparked an interest for me, although midway through the book I was beginning to be frustrated with the speculations and assumptions by the author, and I began to skim the parts of the book in which he postulates on what it would be like as a member of Cahokian society. While his assumptions may be very near accurate, they also struck me with much the same skepticism that I feel when reading events solely through "white" eyes.

Regardless of the position of the author, this book is well worth the read.

Cahokia submitted by sdunav on June 25, 2014, 10:29am This is a very well-written book - which frankly surprised me, because it's a book by an archaeologist. In my experience, academic archaeologists are not very good at writing for people who haven't had at least a few years of grad school.

Anyway, this is *much* more accessible to the general reader than Pauketat's previous book (Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians). And this is a very good thing, because there really aren't many books explaining modern archaeology to an interested public.

It's short and it has some great descriptions of an under-appreciated wonder of the prehistoric world located right in the middle of the US. In addition to telling people about Cahokia, and why it's so different from other prehistoric sites in the US, and when it rose and fell, and what kinds of things happened there, Pauketat also describes some of the archaeologists who've worked at Cahokia over the years - their colorful histories and weird foibles - and the accidental discoveries that have accompanied interstate highway construction and suburban sprawl.

I think Pauketat (or his editors) made a very deliberate decision to NOT include any flashy illustrations in this book. He focuses on what he thinks happened at the site (including several quite "ghastly and bizarre" rounds of human sacrifice), describing it as people's actions - part of religion and political ploys - and downplaying the *stuff* itself. A lot of archaeology books are largely pictures of flashy artifacts and skeletons, but Pauketat tries to put the Native people of the past and their ideas foremost.