Cahokia Urban Mound Center

Timeline

1. c. 600–900Cahokia confluence · US MidwestThe settlement on the Mississippi gradually expanded, beginning to build platform mounds and developing agriculture and handicrafts, laying the foundation for later urbanization.
2. c. 1050–1200Monks Mound and Central Plaza · IllinoisMonks Mound reached over thirty meters in height, with an estimated urban population exceeding ten thousand; wooden palisades, astronomically aligned post circles, and interregional trade made Cahokia the largest pre-Columbian urban center in North America.
3. c. 1200–1400Cahokia site · US MidwestFrom around the thirteenth century the population plummeted, large construction projects ceased, and the settlement was gradually abandoned; the surviving mounds became objects of later Mississippian studies and World Heritage conservation.