Serious question, did anyone else notice those weird markings at the Cahokia Mounds?

I was down in Illinois last month visiting the Cahokia Mounds site near St. Louis and I swear I saw some strange carvings on a few of the smaller mounds that aren't on any of the official maps or guides. I've been reading up on the Mississippian culture for a few years now, and these markings looked like they could be some kind of solar calendar or maybe boundary markers that just got overlooked. The park ranger I asked just shrugged and said I was probably seeing tree root damage from a storm last spring. But I've seen root damage before and these were way too straight and intentional, like someone chiseled them out maybe 500 years ago. Has anyone else spotted stuff like this at a major dig site that the experts just waved off?

2 comments

2 Comments

luna58928d ago

My buddy Dan was at Poverty Point last year poking around the edges and found a straight line of little holes in one of the ridges. He showed a photo to a grad student who said it was probably just modern fence post holes. Dan still swears they were too old and uniform for that.

adam_hernandez28d ago

@luna589 honestly, fence post holes are super common in old agricultural areas... people been putting up fences for hundreds of years. unless dan had a soil sample test done or carbon dating, it's kind of just a guess. those grad students see stuff like that all the time and they're usually right.