The ongoing archaeological investigation of Cahokia is an ongoing act of recovery — the recovery of a history that was built over, literally and figuratively, and that requires sustained effort to see clearly.

The effort is worth it, not because Cahokia is an exotic curiosity but because it is part of the history of this place — a history that belongs to the people whose ancestors built it and that belongs to the broader story of what human beings have built and accomplished on this continent.

The mounds are still there.

The soil still holds its evidence.

And the story is still being told, by archaeologists and by Native scholars and by the nations that carry the living heritage of the Mississippian world.