Cahoki A Pre-Columbian American City By Timothy R. Pauketat

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In the essay “Cahokia: A Pre-Columbian American City” by Timothy R. Pauketat many new ideas and perspectives were brought to the attention of the reader. The article/essay portrayed many aspects of the Cahokian culture and civilization and why it played such a pivotal role in the Native American economy, political system, and religious deity. In addition, the article gave insight as to how the grand city began its decline and eventual fall due to its many debacles and travesties that commenced. Overall, the article added a new level of knowledge to my Native American understanding as I knew Cahokia played a large role in the Pre Columbian American era, but what I came upon realizing was that Cahokia was much more than just a large city. In …show more content…

In the article, it said “at one point Cahokia was the center for native American civilization” (Pauketat). Moreover, I found the events that lead to the downfall of Cahokia quite interesting. I was unaware of its fall from prominence due to a multitude of devastating events such as fires and periods of cold non fertile seasons full of droughts. Thus, the fall of Cahokia seemed to be almost like the fall of other grand cities as a result of external causes in addition to some political struggles such as that of …show more content…

In the New World, domestic animals were not common and therefore most meat was hunted and scavenged for, whereas in the Old World domestic animals such as cows, horses, pigs, etc. were very commonplace in villages of the same stature as those in the Americas thus living styles were different with different habits. In addition, the epidemiological imbalance came from the amount of diseases deriving from the old world and its domestic animals compared to the diseases found in the Americas. Overall, the old world, Europe, had many more diseases which transmitted easily. Also, Mann calls the disease imbalance the most important fact in world history because when these diseases were transmitted to the Americas, it dictated the first 150 years of Native American life as so many were

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