Review by Booklist Review
In the middle of the eleventh century, a great civilization, centered on the city of Cahokia, near modern-day St. Louis, was poised to flower, prosper, and spread its influence across the eastern half of North America. The city of Cahokia itself was comparable in cultural brilliance to the great urban centers of Mesoamerica. What were the sources of this civilization and what can we glean about the lives of its people? Anthropology professor Pauketat utilizes the latest revelations uncovered by historians and archaelogists to write a compact but thorough survey of this powerful but enigmatic culture. He acknowledges the limits of research, since Cahokians left no written records, and potentially valuable artifacts have been looted over the centuries. Still, some of Pauketat's provocative speculations are credible. He asserts that a cultural big bang in the eleventh century, rather than a gradual evolution, molded Cahokia. He paints a portrait of a technologically advanced, thriving society that, like its Mesoamerican counterparts, practiced human sacrifice. This is an interesting and informative explanation of a fascinating but still puzzling civilization.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Author and anthropologist Pauketat (Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions) locates a civilizational "big bang" in the Mississippi River valley of 1050 CE, where "social life, political organization, religious belief, art, and culture were radically transformed" by a highly ambitious group of American Indians and their capital city, Cahokia, located east of what is now St. Louis. In this illuminating text, Pauketat examines the life, death, and rediscovery of this vast urban population and their game-changing cultural innovations (ranging from innocuous but influential sports like "chunkey" to large-scale reenactments of mythical stories, featuring bloody human sacrifice). Page by page, Pauketat compiles the fascinating details of a complex archeological puzzle; explaining the study of cross-cultural goddess worship, cave art, hand tools and games, this volume doubles as a crash-course in the archeological method. Pauketat's academic approach responsibly invites opposing viewpoints, and his writing is rich in you-are-there detail, making this an archeological adventure suitable for pre-Columbian enthusiasts as well as inquisitive laymen. (Aug.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
