Another in Lewis & Clark series

Monks Mound (photo courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site)

A neat place for kids: Cahokia Mounds

Before starting his exploration up the Missouri River in 1804, Meriwether Lewis took a short sightseeing hike. He explored a one-of-a-kind, ancient Indian fort.

The fortifications Lewis saw was a tiny part of the vast Cahokia Mounds complex. That area now is on a United Nations list of significant archaeological sites in the world.

Other places on that list include the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China.

Lewis went on his hike from Camp Dubois in the winter of 1804. That was 200 years ago. But, the Cahokia Mounds' history is much, much older.

Archeologists say the Cahokia Mounds area was home to more than 20,000 Indians in the 1000 to 1200 A.D. period. It was the largest Indian settlement in all of North America.

The Indians of that era are gone. But, the Cahokia Mounds earthworks have been preserved. It's a fun place for sightseeing. A very large interpretative center has lots of exhibits.

Scott Mandrell (left) and Dr. Mark Esarey

For information, you can visit the area's website at www.cahokiamounds.com Also, you can call the center at (618) 346-5160. A good upcoming event is Kids' Day on May 23.

Scott Mandrell is a St. Louis school teacher. He's on a leave-of-absence to play the role of Captain Meriwether Lewis in a two-year reenactment tour now going on.

Last month, Mandrell hosted a special "Lewis and Clark Then and Now" internet class broadcast from the Cahokia Mounds interpretative center.

Mandrell said Lewis included mention of his sightseeing trip in his official journals. But, Mandrell said, "Lewis didn't have a sense of the age" of the Indian area. He also saw only a small part of the unique complex.

The projected Indian population of 20,000 was gigantic for that ancient time. A typical Indian village back then would be only about 500 people.

During the February class broadcast, Mandrell interviewed two Indian experts. They were Dr. Mark Esarey and Dr. John Kelly.

Esarey is the site director of Cahokia Mounds. Kelly is a lecturer in archaeology at Washington University.

Kelly also is doing research in the Grassy Lake area near Roxanna, Ill. That's the area where Meriwether Lewis made his sightseeing hike 200 years ago.

The interpretive center at Cahokia
(photo courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site)

The whole Cahokia Mounds area spreads over a wide area.

Dr. Esarey said you can think about the pre-historic Indian settlement as being a little like the current St. Louis metro area. There wasn't just one big city. Rather, there were individual settlements with space between, just like the suburbs of today.

The settlements were formed about families or clans. But, so many clans came together that Cahokia Mounds was a cultural and economic center for a huge area.

The biggest earthworks at Cahokia Mounds is called Monks Mound. Archeologists believe it was built in up to eight different stages. At its peak, it's over 100 feet high and the base covered 14 acres.

That amounts to 22 million cubic feet of dirt. That's quite a construction job when you consider the Indians carried the dirt in baskets.

In those days, there was a wooden stockade around Monks Mound and 16 other mounds. The circumference was nearly two miles.

Also a feature of Cahokia Mounds were circular patterns of wooden poles. They were celestial calendars so Indians could keep track of the seasons by shadows cast by the sun at different times of the year.

Those circular structures are called Woodhenge. That's a play on words of the ancient rock calendar in Britain that goes by the name of Stonehenge.

Of course, proving the existence of Woodhenge is harder that placing Stonehenge. The reason: wood. With over 1,000 years gone by, all the wood has rotted. But, archeologists discovered pits dug in circles and came up with the calendar idea.

The archeologist was Dr. Warren Wittry. He found traces of up to five different Woodhenge installations.

The Cahokia Mounds class was just one of dozens of internet appearances by the Lewis&Clark reenactors. You can follow the whole tour on a couple websites.

The Lewis and Clark Education Initiative site is at www.lewisandclark.net. Then, Apple Computer is providing an educational resource site at www.ali.apple.com/lewisandclark.