Cahokia Mounds was the first of the three ‘earthen mounds’ WHS I planned to visit on this US trip. Honestly, I did not have high expectations. I was anticipating some Viking-style heaps of soil covered by grass, revealing few clues of what had happened there in the past. But this is so much more impressive.

Already while reading up on the site beforehand I noticed similarities with Teotihuacan (which is much older by the way and had ten times as many inhabitants, to put it in perspective). There are a number of drawings used in the interpretation of the site that show what ‘Cahokia City’ may have looked like (see top photo). You have this gigantic mound (Monks Mound) which probably was the ceremonial center and residence of the chief. It is slightly larger than the Temple of the Sun in Teotihuacan. There was a Grand Plaza as well as numerous funerary tumuli. Over 10,000 people are believed to have lived in the city in its heydays around the year 1100.

This is also a WHS ‘connected to a road’ – you can’t get away from the fact that a major road crosses the site, separating the Monks Mound and the reconstructed Woodhenge from the rest of the mounds. This is the US, so no one apparently has thought of at least adding a pedestrian crossing and some speed bumps to let people safely cross on foot. The same road (well, a forerunner: the National Road) however has been instrumental in the fact that we still can enjoy the remains of Cahokia. Legislation and activism in the 1950s and 1960s raised the awareness of the importance of the site and some of the money allocated for highway construction was used in the salvage operations for Cahokia.

This brings up the subject of ‘reconstructions’. As most original structures such as living quarters and the city wall were made of wood, nothing of these remains. A few stock posts and a woodhenge have been reconstructed. The earthen mounds are largely original, but some have been restored after they had been plowed over when the area still was in agricultural use.

The visitor center is undergoing restoration at the moment, so the exhibition is not open and also there are no (audio) guided tours available. You can pick a trail map and a booklet from one of the boxes outside. When you follow the yellow hiking trail you will pass the site’s highlights, each of which has an information panel. I found the interpretation of the site pretty well done, although overall the knowledge about what was going on at Cahokia is limited (and it makes you wonder whether the interpretations are overly inspired by better-documented Mesoamerican examples). The site officially is open ‘from dawn til dusk’, but due to its location by the side of the road and it being unfenced, it is in fact accessible 24x7.