Beautiful day yesterday, and went for a nice hike at Cahokia Mounds. As noted at the UNESCO World Heritage site: "Cahokia Mounds, some 13 km north-east of St Louis, Missouri, is the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico. It was occupied primarily during the Mississippian period (800–1400), when it covered nearly 1,600 ha and included some 120 mounds. It is a striking example of a complex chiefdom society, with many satellite mound centres and numerous outlying hamlets and villages. This agricultural society may have had a population of 10–20,000 at its peak between 1050 and 1150. Primary features at the site include Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthwork in the Americas, covering over 5 ha and standing 30 m high."
The Terraced front of Monk's Mound, seen from the west. This was actually the last phot taken, towards the end of our 3.2 mile clockwise loop.
- - -
Lots of deer in the wooded areas of the park. They seemed remarkably uninterested in us, I had to make a sound to get this one to even acknowledge we were there.
- - -
I liked the reflections here. I guess you'd call this wetlands, they were sure wet lands on this day. looking at the trail map, this is one of the larger "borrow pits", where they got the dirt to build the mounds.
- - -
.
Looking west across Twin Mounds
- - -
It's been years since I've been to Cahokia Mounds, and I didn't realize they had such an extensive collection of trails. We'll have to check them out more!
Our walk, from the AllTrails Ap. The green stars are the approximate photo locations:
No comments:
Post a Comment