The involvement of contemporary Native nations in the archaeology and interpretation of Cahokia has become more significant in recent decades, as both archaeological ethics and federal law have moved toward greater engagement with descendant communities in the investigation and stewardship of ancestral sites.

NAGPRA — the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — applies to Cahokia as it does to other federally connected archaeological sites, and the consultation requirements of that law have brought representatives of multiple nations into the conversation about how the site is managed and how its remains are treated.

This engagement is not merely procedural.

The perspectives that Native scholars, cultural practitioners, and community members bring to the interpretation of Cahokia are genuinely different from — and genuinely enriching of — the perspectives that archaeology alone can provide.

Archaeological evidence tells us what was there; oral traditions, cultural knowledge, and the living inheritance of Mississippian cultural practices can suggest what it meant.