Cahokia

Castine Indian Mounds

Monks Mound

In visiting the “Castine Mounds,” near the Cahokia creek, in Illinois, a writer says: “After a drive of an hour and a half the second group of eminences, known as the Castine Mounds, appeared upon the prairie at a distance of three or four miles; the celebrated Monk Hill, the largest monument of the kind yet discovered in North America, heaving up its giant form, forest clothed from in the midst; as it is first beheld, surrounded by the lesser heaps, it is mistaken by the traveler for an elevation of natural origin; as he draws nigh, and at length … Read more

Cahokia Mound

The ancient civilization at Cahokia took advantage of the nearby waterways and the rich soil to sustain life in the American Bottom.

Cahokia Mound. The largest prehistoric artificial earthwork in the United States, situated in Madison County, Illinois, in what is known as the American bottom, about 6 miles East of St Louis, Missouri, and in plain view of the railroads entering that city from the East. Before their partial destruction by the plow the principal mound was surrounded by an extensive mound group, numbering, according to Brackenridge (Views La., 187, 1814), who visited the place in 1811, “45 mounds or pyramids, besides a great number of small artificial elevations.” The name Cahokia is that of a tribe which formerly occupied a … Read more