Visited the Cahokia Mounds site again after 15 years - what a difference

I went back to Cahokia Mounds in Illinois last weekend after not being there since 2009. Back then the main plaza was mostly just a big empty field and the Monks Mound steps were falling apart. Now they have proper signage, a rebuilt woodhenge circle, and the whole place feels like a real archaeological site instead of a forgotten park. Has anyone else gone back to a dig site or museum years later and noticed big changes from new work or better preservation?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker_bailey1mo ago

Monks Mound had that big crack in 2010 too, saw it right before they roped it off.

the_rose1mo ago

yeah but here's the thing nobody's talking about - the climate change angle. those mounds are built from layers of soil and clay that are super sensitive to weather extremes. when i was there in 2009 the drought had cracked the top of monks mound so bad they had to close parts of it. now with all the heavy rains we've been getting in the midwest, i wonder how much erosion is actually happening underneath all that new preservation work. they can put up nice signs and rebuild woodhenges but the real story is how we're losing these sites to weather patterns that didn't exist when they were first built. the native american tribes who still care for the site must be watching every storm with a different kind of worry than the tourists see.