Monks Mound still rises thirty meters above the Illinois plain, still visible from miles away, still insisting on its own improbability.

The Grand Plaza is still flat — the engineering that flattened it a thousand years ago is still evident in the landscape.

The smaller mounds scattered across the protected site still mark the locations of structures whose specific functions remain matters of scholarly debate.

And the parking lots of the surrounding suburbs still cover the outer zones of the city.

The small mounds that were destroyed to plant corn or build subdivisions are gone.

The features that LiDAR is beginning to reveal in the surrounding landscape — the traces of the broader urban network that extended beyond the current site boundaries — are beneath streets and buildings and shopping centers.