The physical remains of Cahokia are, among other things, evidence of political authority that could command the labor and materials necessary to create them.

The World Cahokia Reached

The trade networks that connected Cahokia to the broader North American world are, if anything, even more impressive than the city’s own physical infrastructure, because they imply relationships and organizational capacity that extended far beyond the immediate region.

The geographic reach of the Mississippian trade network at Cahokia’s height was extraordinary.

Marine shell from the Gulf coast — specifically, shells of species that are native to Gulf waters and that are not found in the Mississippi Valley — appears in Cahokia burials and in archaeological sites across the Mississippian world in quantities that indicate systematic, large-scale exchange rather than occasional acquisition.

The shells were not simply transported; they were worked into finished objects — gorgets, beads, cups — that are among the finest artistic productions of the Mississippian world and that appear in remarkably consistent stylistic forms across a huge geographic area.