RIDGE RUNNER CHRONICLES: Things I Never Knew About Cahokia

By Editor | March 18, 2026 |

Like other St. Louis metropolitan area residents, I heard about the Cahokia Mounds site for years but never paid much attention to that world-famous site until now. But recently I became curious about its history and until I did the research, I did not realize that there are so many things about Cahokia that I never knew. So let’s briefly discuss a few of the more surprising facts about the Cahokia Mounds site, located in Illinois about six miles due east of downtown St. Louis.
The most remarkable aspect about Cahokia is that in a relatively short period of time, from roughly 1050 A.D. to 1100 A.D., it grew from a small indigenous population of 1,000 to more than 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants, a population size that at the time was larger than London or Rome; in fact, it was the largest indigenous community ever in North America. This population burst resulted from the influx of migrants coming from as far away as modern-day Louisiana, Michigan and Ohio. No one knows for sure why these migrants came from so far away; maybe it was the lure of “big-city life.” (Sound familiar?) Yet by 1500 A.D., this huge metropolitan site had been completely abandoned and we are still not sure why.
The second most surprising aspect of this culture was that during their existence at this location, which occupied roughly 4,000 acres, the inhabitants constructed over 120 earthen mounds, one of which was roughly seven stories high; this particular mound, referred to as the “Monk’s Mound”, appears to have been the residential site for the political and religious leaders of the community. From what we can tell, Cahokia was a strict hierarchical society, with overwhelming degrees of class structure; not surprisingly, the political and religious leaders literally lived above everyone else up on “Monk’s Mound.”
The third surprising aspect was that as time went on, the Cahokia leadership engaged in human torture and sacrifices. Mound #72, when excavated, revealed 53 bodies carefully laid in a row. These cadavers were all young females who had been strangled to death. Another mound contained 39 bodies in which it was evident that most of these individuals had been tortured and/or buried alive. In other words, in its later years, Cahokia may not have been your typical, stereotyped agrarian and peace-loving indigenous community; it was much more complex than that.
Finally, the fact about Cahokia that really got my attention was spelled out in “Native Nations”, a book by Kathleen DuVal. In that book, DuVal, discussing what eventually happened at Cahokia, theorizes that “urbanization tends to be accompanied by centralized power and an increasingly rigid class structure, in which wealth and power concentrate among a few families” (in addition to all the other problems that come with intense and rapid urbanization) making cities less livable as they grow. As time went on, the Cahokia leaders became more tyrannical due to their inability to deal with the issues and this led to a practice of torturing and beheading people and eventually driving the ones who did all the work away forever until none were left—a truly organic societal revolution that ironically had nothing to do with European influences.
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■ Bill Hoagland has practiced law in Alton for more than 50 years, but he has spent more than 70 years hunting, fishing and generally being in the great outdoors. His wife, Annie, shares his love of the outdoor life. Much of their spare time is spent on their farm in Calhoun County. Bill can be reached at [email protected].