Monks Mound is too big to disappear quickly.

Even with the losses from slumping and centuries of weathering, what remains is still one of the largest earthen structures in the world.

Recent geophysical investigations of Monks Mound have used ground-penetrating radar and other remote sensing tools to build a three-dimensional picture of the mound’s internal structure without excavating it.

These investigations are revealing details of the construction sequence and the internal organization of the mound that excavation alone could not have provided — including evidence for the location of the building that once stood on the summit, the layout of the construction stages, and the distribution of different types of fill material within the mound.

The Question of Governance