Monks Mound at Cahokia is the largest prehistoric earthen mound in the Americas. Its roughly 13-acre base is about the same as the Great Pyramid of Giza—not the largest pyramid footprint in the world, since Cholula is larger. The video argues for inverted sod blocks and deliberate flooding, but neither claim is established. An early drill bit remains embedded, and a roughly 100-by-80-foot cedar-post building once stood on the summit.
Monks Mound: America’s largest prehistoric earthen mound; video’s sod and flood claims
USAGeneral
Key facts
- Monks Mound is the largest prehistoric earthen mound in the Americas. Its roughly 13-acre (5.3-hectare) footprint is comparable to the Great Pyramid of Giza, but it is not the world’s largest pyramid by footprint; the Great Pyramid of Cholula has a much larger base.
- The mound was built in stages with earth fill. The video argues that inverted sod blocks, analogous to European barrows, were used, but the cited archaeological summaries do not establish that method.
- The video presents canoe or raft transport of non-local floodplain soil as its reconstruction; the precise source and transport route are not established by the cited summaries.
- The video argues that the mound was deliberately flooded to create oxygen-poor preservation. Low-oxygen burial can preserve organic material, but intentional flooding has not been established as part of the mound’s design.
- An early drilling attempt left a drill bit embedded in Monks Mound.
- A building roughly 100 by 80 feet, supported by large cedar posts, stood on the summit.
- Cahokia had about 120 mounds, and nearly 80 remain. Farming, railroad fill and development destroyed or damaged many, so “all but one” is inaccurate for the Cahokia complex.
Sources
Cahokia | ORIASorias.berkeley.edu
The biggest mound at Cahokia, Monks Mound, is over 100 feet tall, 775 feet wide, and 950 feet long, making its base about the same size as the Great Pyramid of ...
Cahokia Mounds · The History of Southern Illinoisscrcexhibits.omeka.net
... largest man-made mound in the United States and larger at its base than both the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. It was ...
Cahokia Mounds - Illinois Historic Preservation Divisiondnrhistoric.illinois.gov
The site is dominated by the hundred-foot-tall Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthen mound in the Americas, and supported several multiple-mound ...
Mound 38 – Monks Mound – Cahokia Mounds State Historic Sitecahokiamounds.org
Taking the 130-meter (426.5 foot) contour as the base elevation, the mound has a north-south dimension of 291 meters (954.7 feet) and an east- ...
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Sitecahokiamounds.org
The State of Illinois now protects roughly 2,200 acres of the central portion of the Site. Including 72 of the nearly 80 remaining mounds, as some mounds are ...
Monks Mounden.wikipedia.org
... Great Pyramid of Giza (13.1 acres / 5.3 hectares). The perimeter of its base is larger than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. As a platform mound, the ...
Seeds of Change Action Item: Rename Monks Moundmintandbloomlearning.com
The Mississippians built this mound by moving buckets of soil and clay to make a pyramid that, at its base, is about the same size as the Great ...
A 'PYRAMID' IN THE MIDWEST; Monks Mound, a Major ...nytimes.com
The mound is 100 feet high and the base covers 16 acres, an area larger than the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the largest pyramid in Egypt. The mound is shaped like ...
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