In June, Bill and I visited Cahokia (Illinois) to experience the work of the Mound Builders. A few weeks ago we visited Spiro (Oklahoma) to experience more mounds. The Spiro archaeologist explained that to the Mississippian Culture, Cahokia was the equivalent of New York City, while Spiro was its Washington DC. My photo below shows the reconstruction of a wattle and daub house built during the culture's heyday.

I just now came across a piece I wrote more than thirty years ago after getting fed up with archaeological jargon. What's weird is that there's something eerie about my made-up tale that resonates today.


A Classic Tale (1977)

Only the artifacts have been changed.

Once upon a time as I was walking in the gallery forests, having been temporarily overpowered by subsistence stress, I encountered a Megafauna.

“Holocene!” I yelled, in an attempt to force a rapid migration.

I reached for my shell-tempered, lip-notched, rim-corded chert-shard, when the temperature suddenly began oscillating and we were all but phased out. I ran for the nearest rockshelter and waited until the climatic optimum had blown over.

Cautiously emerging, I found myself in an over-all warming trend with an extinct Megafauna. I had lost my time period. Was this still the Late Early Tradition?

I trekked over undulating grasslands, through encroaching savannah vegetation, up the interriverine floodplains, past complex mortuary sites, toward densely populated habitations in search of my origins. Just then pluvial conditions altered the environmental factors and I awakened in my own horizon in the mound I call home.

Needless to say, I was eustatic.