The National Science Foundation recently awarded a five-year, $312,000 grant to a group of anthropologists so it can create a comprehensive map of the Cahokia Mounds site near Collinsville, Illinois.
The project using magnetometry equipment would be the largest archaeo-geophysical project to date in all the Americas, reported the Edwardsville Intelligencer.
For this project they will focus on an area of approximately 5.5 square kilometers centered on “downtown Cahokia” that was home to as many as 10,000 to 15,000 residents during a period of rapid growth during the 10th and 11th centuries CE. […]
Using their equipment, the researchers will be able to identify buried house foundations, storage or refuse bins, and other modifications to the landscape like the production of plazas. […]
Survey work will be done in both the winter and summer and will begin in May of 2023.
The researchers said they also would give all data collected from the project to Native American tribes.
The Cahokia Mounds site, for reasons unknown, was abandoned by the year 1400.
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site contains about 70 mounds, including the towering Monk’s Mound, over its 2,200 acres.
Cahokia Mounds sits along Collinsville Road, an alignment of Route 66, that runs through Collinsville, Fairmount City and East St. Louis.
(Images of Monk’s Mound and the Grand Plaza at Cahokia Mounds by Thank You (22 Millions=) Views via Flickr)