Contextualing Cahokia's Collapse

Summary

The wide scale abandonment of Mississippian towns in the lower Midwest by the beginning of the fifteenth century has been the focus of interest for the last four decades beginning with the work of Stephen Williams. The largest urban center, Cahokia, is one of the earliest to be abandoned before the end of the fourteenth century. Recent evidence has been presented on a massive flood in the twelfth century as perhaps an important factor in this process, that occurs over a century later. This presentation focuses on the historical trajectory of the Cahokian polity and the role and interplay of a variety of other environmental, social, and geopolitical factors have played in its “collapse,” and Cahokian society’s eventual reversion to a tribal level society.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• "Let's Talk about [Collapse], Baby": Explorations in the Archaeology of Societal Collapse

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Spatial Coverage