In case you didn’t know, there have been more archeological discoveries in Cahokia’s 17 square kilometers than in virtually any other place in the globe.
The sheer number of out-of-this-world findings made in here left every archeologist stunned, to say the least.
The city’s original name has yet to be discovered, with the name Cahokia standing as the official one only because the French explorers who discovered it thought it fit well. It was originally built by the ancient Mississippians and dates back to roughly 500 BC.
Over 120 artificial mounds upon which pyramids were erected were unearthed here, making this one of the most promising finds to date.
The city previously had roughly 10-20,000 residents, and as you can see by now, they were living rather nicely due to the city’s thriving economy at the time.
This peaked around 10-12 AD, when they built the most of their pyramids. It was once the largest metropolis in all of Europe, even larger than London.
Inscriptions uncovered revealed that the city was abandoned around 1350.
The most likely cause was either a plague or starvation, as building pyramids was such an important part of their civilization that they were pretty much out of money and couldn’t afford to feed themselves anymore.
