The state archaeology park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. At its apex around CE, the city covered about 6 square miles 16 km 2 , included about earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions, and had a population of between 15, and 20, 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 around CE.
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. Most likely, multiple indigenous ethnic groups settled in the Cahokia Mounds area during the time of the city's apex.
Cahokia Mounds is a National Historic Landmark and a designated site for state protection. The largest pre-Columbian earthen construction in the Americas north of Mexico, [ 5 ] the site is open to the public and administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Division and supported by the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society. Although some evidence exists of occupation during the Late Archaic period around BCE in and around the site, [ 13 ] Cahokia as it is now defined was settled around CE during the Late Woodland period.
Mound building at this location began with the emergent Mississippian cultural period, around the 9th century CE. 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 , [ 16 ] shark teeth, [ 17 ] and lightning whelk shells.
In the centuries preceding CE, American Bottom populations were living in small settlements of 50 to people that were used for short durations of 5โ10 years. At least two of these larger clusters were present at Cahokia, one dating to the mid-7th and 9th centuries.
