What evidence supports the claim that the city of Cahokia in North America was a capital of a state or a center of cultural influence?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A. Frontier position
1. allowed it to act as a commercial gateway
a. between complementary zones with different environments and therefore different products
b. shells from the Gulf, deerskins from the eastern woodlands, bison pelts and horn from the prairies
B. Size and area
1. city probably covered 5.5 square miles
2. Cahokia probably had around 10,000 inhabitants in its built-up area
3. size gives it the look of a focal point for this scattering of settlements
C. Large structures and buildings
1. central platform is over 100-feet high
a. base of the great mound is as big as that of the biggest Egyptian pyramid
2. most intensely and elaborately constructed of a great arc of mound clusters
D. Production of goods
1. pots, shell work, soapstone carvings, and small axe heads
2. circulated over hundreds of miles and for hundreds of years after the mound dwellers died out or dispersed
E. Longevity of culture
1. inaugurated a way of life that was economically successful and artistically productive for a few hundred years
2. culture of the kind that climaxed at Cahokia did not disappear
3. it was displaced and some of its more ambitious features—the huge mounds, the vast reach of trade—were abandoned
4. mound building continued on a smaller scale at sites scattered over the lower Mississippi valley and across the North American Southeast
a. traditions of burying chiefs, with rich grave goods and sometimes with large-scale sacrifices were maintained