The reconstruction, through environmental analysis, of the landscape transformations that accompanied and followed Cahokia’s growth — the deforestation, the erosion, the alteration of drainage patterns that the city’s construction and occupation produced.

This environmental reconstruction has added an important dimension to the understanding of Cahokia’s sustainability and decline.

The ongoing analysis of the Mound 72 burials, including isotopic and DNA studies that have shed additional light on who the buried individuals were, where they came from, and the nature of the social and ceremonial context in which they died and were interred.

The Erasure and Why It Happened