Ancient Poop Reveals What Happened After the Fall of Cahokia
upstart from IRC writes:
Ancient poop reveals what happened after the fall of Cahokia:
Tens of thousands of people once lived in Cahokia, the city at the heart of the mound-building Mississippian culture (which dominated the midwestern and southeastern United States from 700 to 1500 CE). And then, around 1450, they all left. Now, sediment cores from nearby Horseshoe Lake suggest that the area didn't stay deserted for long.
The study looked for the chemical signature of ancient human feces, which washed into nearby Horseshoe Lake over the centuries along with layers of soil, pollen, and other material. When bacteria in your gut break down cholesterol, they produce a chemical called coprostanol, which can survive in soil for hundreds or even thousands of years. More coprostanol in the soil means more people living (and pooping) in the area around the lake.
[...] "A lot of discussions around Cahokia stop around 1400 [CE], around when Cahokia is said to have been abandoned," White told Ars in a 2019 interview. "I think we're kind of adding sort of a new layer to the story in that area."
[...] For about a century after the city's demise, the surrounding region looked like a ghost town, according to the sediment cores. Then, around 1500 CE, more coprostanol started washing into the lake again-people were back. But they were living in a very different landscape than the old Cahokians; these layers of sediment contain more pollen from trees and grasses, suggesting that woods and prairie had started to reclaim the former maize fields.
[...] White says the coprostanol study provides an important example of indigenous people's resilience and persistence in the face of social upheaval and environmental challenges. "Throughout the history of archaeological research, Native American disappearance has been emphasized more than Native American persistence," he and his colleagues wrote. That's especially true at Cahokia, where so much attention has focused on the city's abandonment.
A.J. White. Looking Beyond Cahokia's Famous Population Decline; American Antiquity, 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2019.103.
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