The Changing Use of Space in Cahokia’s Urban Epicenter: Archaeological Investigations on the Merrell Tract (2011-2016)

Summary

The paper summarizes the results of six field seasons since 2011 by a joint Italian/American archaeological project on the Merrell Tract 300 meters west of Monks Mound. The extensive excavations, expanding upon the area of Wittry’s 1960 salvage work on Tract 15B, revealed a complex sequence of occupations covering the entire sequence of Cahokia’s history spanning the Edelhardt through Sand Prairie phases. Throughout its history the Merrell Tract experienced important changes: first as a domestic area occupied by Emergent Mississippian residential groups; then, during the Cahokian apogee (Lohmann and Stirling phases), it was marked by a sequence of large wooden buildings as part of its transformation into a public space, the West Plaza; finally, it reverted back to a domestic area during the Moorehead and Sand Prairie phases, just before the city’s abandonment. The recovered data clarify many aspects of this long occupation, especially those related with the shape of a rather enigmatic Stirling-phase bastioned compound and with the unexpectedly complex Moorehead-phase occupation of the area.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Insights into Mississippian Culture at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14947