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TZID:Europe/Berlin
TZUNTIL:20040328T010000Z
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DTSTART:20011028T030000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0200
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RDATE:20021027T030000
RDATE:20031026T030000
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DTSTAMP:20260816T073013Z
DESCRIPTION:One thousand years ago a city existed on the Mississippi River 
 floodplain directly to the east of the present St. Louis.  Called Cahokia 
 after the historic aboriginal group who inhabited the site in the 18th cen
 tury\, this was the most extensive expression of urbanism to have been pro
 duced prehistorically in America to the north of Mexico.  The structure of
  the city was planned with clearly defined administrative/ceremonial zones
 \, elite compounds\, discrete residential neighborhoods\, and even suburbs
 .  High organizational skills and great expenditures of labor are evidence
 d by an enormous central plaza and numerous immense earthworks.  With a po
 pulation peak of perhaps 15\,000 individuals\, Cahokia existed for approxi
 mately four centuries (ca. AD 900-1300) as the primary center of the Middl
 e Mississippian culture.  Although specialists were present within the soc
 iety\, most of its members were engaged in primary production activities w
 ith maize agriculture the central focus.  Mississippian food procurement a
 nd production strategies at Cahokia and elsewhere were focalized around th
 e place of habitation.  Indeed\, the city was favorably located from an en
 vironmental standpoint. Cahokia\'s five kilometer radius catchment contain
 ed a diversity of microhabitats including expanses of open water and marsh
 es from which the essential\, renewable fish protein could be procured.  I
 n the eastern half of its catchment was found the largest zone in the loca
 l region of soils characterized as optimal for prehistoric hoe cultivation
 \; i.e.\, readily tilled\, fertile nonacid soils whose fertility was perio
 dically renewed by additions of alluvium\, but whose flood regimes did not
  extend into the growing season.  Here\, on the floodplain and along its b
 ordering alluvial fans\, the large maize outfields were situated\, while t
 he multi-crop infields and house gardens were placed on-site within the ha
 bitation zone on soils which had often been culturally enriched by prior o
 ccupation.  As successful as this strategy might have been for dispersed p
 opulations in such a plentiful environment\, nucleation of large numbers o
 f people at Cahokia provided a different adaptive context which ultimately
  led to ruinous consequences. Hypotheses for the decline and abandonment o
 f this settlement and its hinterland have included disease\, climatic chan
 ge\, and external warfare as primary causative agents.  However\, it is be
 coming clear that the seeds for the city\'s destruction were inherent and 
 centered on anthropogenically produced environmental degradation.  Demands
  on wood resources for fuel and construction were substantial and agricult
 ural field clearance was in forested rather than prairie settings.  The re
 sultant upstream watershed deforestation produced greatly increased rates 
 of erosion\, runoff\, and unseasonable downstream flooding during the summ
 er growing season\; and\, perhaps\, even the diversion of the major local 
 river through\, rather than around\, the city and its associated fields.  
 The economic and social consequences of the resultant declining production
  and localized crop failures would have been disastrous.  Unfortunately\, 
 the relatively slow rates of detrimental change insured that adequate coun
 termeasures were not implemented.
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20020502T161500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20020502T235959
LOCATION:H6
SUMMARY:Prof. William Woods\, PhD\, Department of Geography\, Southern Illi
 nois University: Cahokia's soils
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
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