"Cahokia in the Real World" with Alice Beck Kehoe

Alice Kehoe is Professor of Anthropology, emeritus, at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She first visited Teotihuacán in Mexico at the end of a summer in the excavation of a site in Durango, Mexico. Back then, the ancient city had not been restored to the glory we see today. Pachuca obsidian green blades lay on the avenues along with potsherds, yet its monumental grandeur was overwhelming. The following summer, Kehoe visited Cahokia. Cahokia was overwhelming, in part because of its obvious close resemblance to ancient Mexican cities. By the late 1960s, when Lewis Binford led a revolution in American archaeology turning to statistics instead of cultural comparisons, Cahokia's tie to Mexico was obvious.
This lecture presents strong evidence of Cahokia's Mexican connection, ties it to an origin as a native American type of dispersed towns, and interprets it as such a Late Woodland trading town that linked to Cholula, the most powerful trading empire of its time. Kehoe restores Cahokia to its place in history.
Dr. Alice Beck Kehoe has conducted archaeological and ethnohistorical research in the Northern Plains/Canadian Prairie, Tiwanaku, Dolni Vestonice, and traveled in Asia and Mesoamerica following Precolumbian contacts. Host: Jim Reed of The Aztlander.

[@JMYaden]

Excellent presentation. Lots to digest here, good for multiple viewings. Stick around for the discussion, which is just as compelling as the presentation. I wonder WHY people like Philips were so adamant about denying the Mesoamerican connection in the 30's and 40's. Very interesting to learn about the Cholula-Chaco-Cahokia connection. The discussion of Osage Orange (bow-wood) was a big bonus. Also, a funny side-note: I would NEVER be allowed in the chocolate lab--I have been putting Navitas cacao powder in my coffee every day for years. I think I'm hopelessly contaminated, ha ha!

[@edwardswanzey7595]

This is so RIGHT ON! Ed S.

[@Feliz-1]

Thank you for this connection.
It's obvious the same continent North America was united in tradition and architecture

[@from-Texas]

Wonderful!

[@chrisr6142]

The histories literally call them olmeca xicallanca lol