 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | The fascinating story of a lost city and an unprecedented civilization
Almost a thousand years ago, a Native American city flourished along the Mississippi River near what is now St. Louis. Cahokia was a thriving metropolis at its height with a population of twenty thousand, a sprawling central plaza, and scores of spectacular earthen mounds. The city gave rise to a new culture that spread across the plains; yet by 1400 it had been abandoned, leaving only the giant mounds as monuments and traces of its influence in tribes we know today.
In Cahokia, anthropologist Timothy R. Pauketat reveals the story of the city and its people as uncovered by the dramatic digs of American corn-belt archaeologists. These excavations have revealed evidence of a powerful society, including complex celestial timepieces, the remains of feasts big enough to feed thousands, and disturbing signs of large-scale human sacrifice.
Drawing on these pioneering digs and a wealth of analysis by historians and archaeologists, Pauketat provides a comprehensive picture of what's been discovered about Cahokia and how these findings have challenged our perceptions of Native Americans. Cahokia is a lively read and a compelling narrative of prehistoric America. |
Average Customer Rating:    Cahokia Excellent book bringing some new information about this important place in the past of the Midwest CAHOKIA: ANCIENT AMERICA'S GREAT CITY ON THE MISSISSIPPI BY TIMOTHY R. PAUKETAT Journey back to the eleventh century when North America was a wide open continent teaming with wildlife and nature, where the native peoples were in the minority, where natural resources were in abundance, and where life was different. Travel up the Mississippi and when you get to a place near to what would one day be the city of St. Louis, you will find great flat-top pyramids reaching into the sky, and a place teaming with activity and people. You have reached the ancient and once great city of Cahokia.
Excavations were begun in the area of what would turn out to be the city of Cahokia in the early twentieth century, with a combination of some lucky guesses for sites, and with the great revolution to map America with highways, crucial archeological digs were discovered. In some cases, prosperity destroyed some of these sites, but many others were found and excavated. Author and professor of anthropology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Timothy R. Pauketat, weaves the history and story of this city and culture with the incredible work that was done to excavate and learn about it.
Cahokia is a short book filled with facts and details about a place that few know about, but through crucial research and discovery, it is possible to ascertain through subsequent Native American tribes and populations, what this great city was once like. In this way, readers find out what the stories and mythologies of these people might have been, as well as why the pyramids were built, and why there was such large-scale human sacrifice going on. While there is a lacking in photos and pictures to aid and illustrate in Pauketat's narrative, Cahokia will still startle you and leave you in awe of what was once a great American city that remains relatively unknown.
[...] A very good resource on Cahokia Starting somewhere around 1050 AD, the small Indian village of Cahokia suddenly rose up to be the center of a great North-American culture, perhaps the only great culture in pre-Columbian North-America. Not a great deal is known about the culture that Cahokia led, as it had already fallen by the time that European explorers and missionaries arrived. In this little book, anthropologist Timothy R. Pauketat explains all that is truly known about Cahokia, and how it was found out.
Overall, I found this to be an interesting book, as long as you don't expect too much from it. By its small size, you know at a glance that it is not going to tell you too much. My biggest complaint is that I do wish that the author had spent more time putting what is known about Cahokia into the context of what is known about North-American native culture in general. I feel that this would have drawn a fuller picture of Cahokia. However, I must admit that this would have required a certain amount of speculation and assumption by the author, and he clearly wanted to avoid that in this book.
Another complaint against this book is that it contains no illustrations at all, and that is a shame. Certainly images of what the author was describing would have helped in understanding things. But, that said, much of what the author did talk about really did not require illustrations.
I believe that the author did succeed in what he wanted to accomplish, and that is to pen a book about what it *known* about Cahokia, avoiding unnecessary and untenable speculation. I found the book informative and interesting to read, even if it was a little limited in its scope. If you want to really understand Cahokia, then I would highly recommend that you get this book, it is a very good resource. A Spellbinding Book Pauketat is an archeologist of the Cahokia site, a 1000 year old native American city opposite present day St. Louis on the banks of the Mississippi River. This book provides an excellent introduction to Cahokia and to the Mississippian culture. The author presents current anthropological theories and archaeological data in this single account.
Written for the general reader, the book brings considerable scholarship to a fascinating topic. Pauketat places Cahokia in a large regional context and incorporates the history of the site both as a living center and the largest and most important Native American city north of Mexico.
Pauketat's writing is far from a dry recitation of archaeological fact and trivia. He holds the lay reader's attention with his descriptive ability. Whether he is describing life as it was in this great city, explaining the game of chunkey or crediting Preston Holder, Melvin Fowler, Warren Wittry and others who were a part of the earlier generation of archaeologists of Cahokia, the narrative is not merely adequate, but spell-binding.
I highly recommend the book for general readers and specialists, alike.
What we guess we might know What a great and largely untapped subject for a general treatise; a major civilization in America's heartland, fabulous material remains, the ever-pleasing mystery about who is descended from whom. Alas, this book fails to give a fair rendering of any of these. I kept wondering what would be left if you inked out all the passages that begin with; "Some scholars speculate...", "We think...", "There seems to be a connection...". Sure, we know all questions cannot be answered but the flights of fantasy and speculative leaps come a little too often for this to be considered the product of a serious scientist.
Given the lush descriptions of the unique artifacts produced by these people one would have expected a more fully illustrated book. Skimpy does not begin to describe the lack of pictures, illustrations and maps.
|  |
Select button not working? 
