They moved into other communities, brought their cultural practices with them, and contributed to the development of the Mississippian tradition in other places.

But they had descendants, and those descendants continued to live in the eastern and central United States through the subsequent centuries of European contact, colonial expansion, and dispossession.

Several contemporary Native nations maintain cultural and ancestral connections to the Mississippian tradition and potentially to Cahokia specifically.

The question of which specific contemporary nations are most directly descended from the Cahokia community is not one that can be answered with certainty — the archaeological and documentary records do not provide a clear genealogical line from Cahokia to any specific nation — but the broader Mississippian cultural heritage is claimed and maintained by multiple communities.

The Osage Nation has ancestral connections to the Dhegiha Siouan peoples of the central Plains, who are believed to have origins in the Mississippi Valley and whose cultural heritage includes elements of the Mississippian tradition.