|
|
Article: From urban dirt, ancient city emerges.(USA)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- January 10, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Archaeologist Bill Iseminger pulls his jacket tight against the winter wind and sweeps his arm across the Illinois prairie. His finger traces the outline of a 40-acre grand plaza that was the Times Square of a distant American past.
A thousand years ago "this was the largest city in America north of Mexico," he says. "Between 10,000 and 20,000 people lived here" before the complex was abandoned under mysterious circumstances prior to 1400.
No towering monuments meet the eye. But with archaeologists now uncovering key parts of the Cahokia Mounds here, the dig has captured public interest as a window into America's heartland capital of the first ...