Ancient DNA analysis, though more difficult with the organic materials from Cahokia than with better-preserved specimens from other contexts, has been applied to skeletal remains from the site.

The combination of these modern techniques with the extensive baseline of earlier work has produced a picture of Cahokia that is considerably richer than what was available even twenty years ago.

Some of the major recent advances include:

The demonstration through isotopic analysis that Cahokia attracted people from across a large geographic area — not just from the immediate American Bottom region but from communities hundreds of miles distant.

The isotopic signature of an individual’s childhood diet is preserved in their tooth enamel and can be compared to the isotopic signatures of different regions.