The standard portrayal of pre-Colombian North America (at least north of Mexico) is a vast, unspoiled world speckled with small-scale villages that pale in comparison to the majestic pyramids and ruins of the Aztec, Maya and Inca. “‘Civilization’ is not a word typically associated with ancient North America,” the archaeologist Timothy Pauketat wrote in the opening line of a book that goes on to refute that misconception.
In reality, this continent had its own political and cultural hubs — not as many, perhaps, but far from none. Most significantly, in southern Illinois, the Mississippian city of Cahokia likely boasted a larger population than London around the year 1000. Around the same time, in the remote New Mexico desert, thousands of Puebloans bustled about the engineering marvel that is Chaco Canyon.
Taken together, these overlooked sites dispel the notion that Europeans discovered a land devoid of progress. “Our understanding of American urban history,” wrote historians Lisa Krissoff Boehm and Steven Hunt Corey, “is enriched when we consider in detail the story of populous Native American settlements.”
