Stockade

Cahokia’s central ceremonial precinct was enclosed by a defensive wall called the Stockade, or Palisade. Built of upright logs set in four- to five-foot-deep trenches and probably standing ten to fifteen feet high, the wall was nearly two miles long and required an estimated fifteen to twenty thousand logs. Bastions, or guard towers with raised platforms for warriors, stood at regular intervals of about eighty-five feet center to center, and L-shaped entryways were occasionally placed between them. The wall also served a social function, enclosing nearly two hundred acres that included Monks Mound and seventeen other mounds. Those living inside the sacred precinct were somehow different from those outside, possibly connected to the ruling elite, though all citizens were likely allowed inside for festivals and ceremonies or to help defend the area if needed. It is not known whether enemies were local or distant, or whether the site was ever attacked. Although the wood does not survive, archaeologists can trace dark linear stains in the soil where the trenches cut into lighter subsoils. Evidence shows four often overlapping wall constructions, with bastions changing in size and shape each time, and the wall was rebuilt several times between A.D. 1150 and 1250 as older sections decayed; with each reconstruction, the spacing between bastions became more precise, suggesting that a standard unit of measure had been developed.

Collinsville, Illinois · United States