Nearly 1,000 years ago, immense circles of soaring wooden poles towered over the fertile Mississippi River floodplains, several miles east of present-day St. Louis. Known today as Woodhenge, the timber monuments erected by inhabitants of the ancient city of Cahokia appear to have marked the seasons and tracked movements of the sun, moon and stars.
Archaeologists have unearthed traces of at least five vast wooden rings, numbering between 24 and 72 red cedar posts, built during the height of Cahokia, one of North America’s largest pre-Columbian settlements. While their exact purpose remains unknown, the Woodhenge circles are believed to have been a focal point for religious ceremonies that drew pilgrims from hundreds of miles away during significant celestial events such as the autumnal equinox.
The Ancient City of Cahokia
Centuries before the European settlement of North America, a great metropolis flourished in the continent’s heartland. Home to some 20,000 people at its peak—a population rivaling those of medieval London and Paris—Cahokia sprawled over 6 square miles that included residential neighborhoods, farms, pyramids, expansive public plazas and more than 100 massive terraced earthen mounds.
The largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico, Cahokia was built by people of the Mississippian cultural tradition, which emerged across the American Midwest and Southeast before A.D. 1000. Mississippian societies developed complex social structures, a sophisticated agricultural system and intricately planned cities aligned with the heavens.
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