From The Cahokian WINTER 1997-98
by Timothy R. Pauketat, Ph.D.
State University of New York at Buffalo

What we found astonished us. Our amazement was not a consequence of finding any exceptional artifacts or unusual features. There were none. Instead, we found a remarkably "clean" plaza surface nearly devoid of either artifacts or the remains of houses and pits until late in the site's history (or about A.D. 1250). Rather, here—in a slice three-quarters of a mile long—we laid open something that archaeologists like even more than artifacts: a scientific means of measuring how much muscle was involved in the building of the plaza.

We can now estimate, based on the varying thicknesses of the fill used to level the Grand Plaza (as seen in our trench), how many laborers were needed to build the Grand Plaza. Why is this important? Knowing the size of the labor force that was coordinated (if not commanded) by the new Cahokian "elite" of A.D. 1050 is, in turn, an indirect measure of the political muscle of these early Cahokians at the very begining of their political reign over the region. That is, we can begin to assess the reasons why Cahokia began, at about A.D. 1050, with a Big Bang. For archaeologists, this sort of information is unusually hard to get, and yet can reveal pieces to the puzzle of the rise of Cahokia, the preeminent cultural center in pre-Columbian North America.

*Note: We also excavated in four locations where water lines crossed or where water fountains are planned. The result—remans of houses and pits on, under, or near the plaza fill—will be evaluated alongside the plaza fill itself. The artifacts are being ananlyzed at the University of Illinois by Susan Basmajian and will be the basis of a forthcoming study.

References Cited
Dalan, Rinita (1997).
The Construction of Mississippian Cahokia.
In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Timothy R.
Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, pp. 89-102.
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Fowler, Melvin (1997).
A Cahokia Atlas: A Historical Atlas of Cahokia Archaeology (revised).
Illinois Transportation Archaeological Reasearch Program, Studies in Archaeology 2.
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Pauketat, Timothy R.(1997).
Cahokian Political Economy.
In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, pp. 30-51.
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Pauketat, Timothy R., and Neal H. Lopinot(1997).
Cahokian Population Dynamics.
In Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World, edited by Timothy R.
Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, pp. 103-123.
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.