The Weekend We Climbed an Ancient City

I needed somewhere to take the kids. There had been a family tragedy.

We did not end up at the Cahokia Mounds because I had a plan. Quite the opposite. We all needed to keep moving. Sitting at home felt impossible.

Their grandmother - the kids call her Nana - is an educator. She came up with the idea of going to Cahokia, saying they needed enrichment. Looking back, I suspect she needed to be with her grandchildren as much as they needed to be with her. We simply climbed into the car and crossed the Mississippi River. None of us said anything particularly profound that day.

We met Nana at Cahokia Mounds.

At the time, I knew embarrassingly little about the place. I had lived in St. Louis for years and had driven past the exit countless times, but like so many local landmarks, I had unconsciously decided I would visit "someday."

Someday arrived under less-than-ideal circumstances.

The museum was the first surprise.

Instead of dusty displays and disconnected artifacts, we found life-sized reconstructions of homes filled with cooking fires, tools, games, and families going about ordinary life. It wasn't difficult to imagine children chasing each other through the streets while dinner simmered nearby. The people who built Cahokia stopped feeling like an archaeological abstraction. They were closer to me than I imagined—neighbors separated from us by centuries instead of fences.

One display caught my attention for a completely different reason.

There, tucked among the exhibits, was a recipe for pemmican.

I have always had a weakness for historical food. Finding a recipe instead of simply reading "they ate pemmican" delighted me far more than it probably should have.

Naturally, I came home wanting to make pemmican. I'm weird that way.

After leaving the museum, we climbed Monks Mound.

Calling it a mound doesn't really prepare you for the experience. High priests used to ascend the same hill. It takes you above the treetops and you can see for miles, into downtown St. Louis if the weather cooperates. You can almost imagine being one of the priest-rulers of the Mississippian culture that lived there for centuries.

When we finally reached the top, the view stretched across the floodplain toward St. Louis. And there it was. The Gateway Arch.

It appeared as a pale, sun-washed curve through the haze, almost ghost-like against the skyline.

I remember thinking how strange that these two monuments could see one another across the river.

One represented America's westward expansion.

The other belonged to a civilization many Americans barely know existed.

Later, I learned that Cahokia wasn't merely a large village.

Around A.D. 1050, it exploded into one of the largest cities north of Mexico. Tens of thousands of people lived there. At a time when London was still relatively small, Cahokia may have rivaled it in population. It became the center of a vast cultural network that archaeologists now associate with what is called the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex—a web of religious symbolism, trade, art, and ritual that stretched across much of eastern North America.

My grade-school textbooks taught me that civilization arrived with European ships.

Standing atop Monks Mound makes that impossible to believe.

An entire city had already risen, flourished, and largely disappeared.

Naturally, after visiting, I wanted to understand what the people of Cahokia believed.

That turned out to be much harder.

Reliable scholarship is careful because the evidence is fragmentary. The archaeological record tells us many things about how people lived, traded, built, and buried their dead. It tells us much less about what they thought when they looked at the stars.

Unfortunately, that gap has become fertile ground for speculation.

Some books confidently explain Cahokian religion by invoking lost civilizations, ancient global conspiracies, and elaborate spiritual systems unsupported by evidence. They are entertaining in the way late-night documentaries can be entertaining, but entertainment should never be mistaken for history.

Eventually I switched to works by archaeologists. They were slower. More cautious. Less dramatic.

Ironically, I found them far more fascinating.

By comparing the motifs of tribal artwork, some say Cahokia's heritage to the great empires of Mezoamerica.

Modern St. Louis might have indirect connections to the Aztecs.

Real history is often stranger than conspiracy theories because it refuses to give us neat answers.

One memory from that day at the mounds with my kids and Nana deserves its own paragraph.

At one point, standing at the base of Monk's Mound, I stepped off the trail into the tall grass because I wanted to get some group photos. That innocent decision produced the single worst case of chigger bites I have ever experienced. For the next week I discovered entirely new places on the human body capable of itching. Consider this your public service announcement.

Stay on the trail.

Looking back now, I realize that trip gave me more than a pleasant afternoon with my children. It quietly redirected my imagination.

Years later, when I began writing *Suburban Mummy*, I found myself returning again and again to Cahokia, to Monks Mound, to the sight of the Gateway Arch standing on the horizon like a sentry between worlds.

We often think mythology belongs somewhere else.

Greece.

Egypt.

Mesoamerica.

But standing atop Monks Mound, with one foot in the ancient world and one eye on the modern skyline of St. Louis, I couldn't escape the feeling that America has its own forgotten myths.

Sometimes they're hiding just across the river.

Have you visited Cahokia Mounds? I'd love to hear what surprised you most.