Cahokia
A Native American city near modern St. Louis once had a larger population than London did at the time — complete with massive earthen pyramids — and archaeologists still genuinely disagree about why its tens of thousands of residents abandoned it centuries before Europeans arrived.
Cahokia was a major pre-Columbian Native American city near present-day St. Louis, Illinois, which at its peak around 1100 AD housed a population estimated to have rivaled or exceeded contemporary London, featuring massive earthen mound structures including the continent's largest prehistoric earthwork. The city's decline and eventual abandonment by around 1400 AD, well before European contact, remains a genuinely disputed archaeological question among researchers.
- →Cahokia, located near present-day St. Louis, Illinois, reached its peak population around 1100 AD, with archaeological population estimates ranging from 10,000 to as high as 20,000 residents, comparable to or exceeding contemporary London's population.
- →The site features over 120 earthen mounds, including Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthwork in North America, covering approximately 14 acres at its base.
- →The city functioned as a major regional political, religious, and economic center, with evidence of extensive trade networks extending across much of North America.
- →Cahokia experienced significant population decline beginning around 1200 AD and was largely abandoned by approximately 1400 AD, well before European contact with the Americas, with the specific cause of this decline remaining a genuinely disputed archaeological question.