August 9, 2024 • 42 mins
Four centuries before Columbus reached the western hemisphere, Cahokia was a prosperous pre-American city with a population similar to London’s. In fact, it was probably the largest North American city north of Mexico at that time. While Cahokia was a major population centre around AD1050, by 1350 it was largely abandoned by its people – and, even today, no one is sure why.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So true story. Four hundred years before crystal Ball Cologne
reached what he thought was India, I.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Mean Christopher Columbus.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, oh, crystal Ball, before he did reach this, for
centuries and centuries, there was a city with a population
similar in size to London right here in North America.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Say what, that's right, Kahokia, not to be confused with
the Kloika.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's different, Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Very very different, very different things. And that's our classic
episode for this evening, folks. Once upon a time, Kuika
was a enormously prosperous city, the largest of its sort
north of Mexico on this continent. And do you guys
remember this episode?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, I just remember that people seem to have abandoned
it and we're not really sure why.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
It feels very mysterious to me, Like the entire episode
is one big mystery.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's very Krakatoa thirteen fifty CE. This metropolis was largely abandoned.
What happened?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff. They don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our guest
super producer Tari So reach out and say hi. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know, a bit of
a history episode for us. You guys, we have in
the past explored lost civilizations, and we've explored lost cities
(01:55):
spoiler alert by the way, there are tons and tons
of them around spoiler alert.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We've spoiled Lost and gotten yelled at about it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's true, that's true.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
That's the thing that happened.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I think Loss spoils itself at the edge. I don't
want to throw pot shots at it. But it's a
great show.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
It really is. But then they remade it into a
more fun version and now it's called The Good Place.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You know, you're right, man, never thought about that connection,
but it is kind of Not only is it more fun, it's.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Just like a better show. It knows where it's going.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
But they do still wrestle with some of the same
philosophical quandaries at the time. I think that's an excellent comparison.
One thing that the good Place does not have that
Lost does have. It is a collection of inexplicable ruins.
You know what I mean? We all look. I'm gonna
spoil it because it's one of the coolest parts. Spoiler
(02:50):
countdown three, two, one, the foot, where's the body? Why?
Why are there only four toes?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Spoiler alert You never find out.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
They will never tell you. But but it turns out
that they're cleaving the show careers of Lost, or cleaving
closer to the truth than you might imagine. The US
is often explained in the following way. In comparison to Europe.
They'll say, in Europe, two hundred miles is a long way.
(03:24):
In the US, two hundred years is a long time.
And we often think about this country in terms of
the beginning of migration across the ocean, right, So we
don't think of all the people who crossed over the
Bearing straight in ancient times. We don't think of the
(03:44):
pre Columbian cultures that rose and fell. We think of
you know, crystal Ball Colombo selling the Ocean blue.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
He sold the Ocean blue. I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Crystal Ball Colombo, Crystal bal columb Okay, hmm.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I was like, I am not aware of this pronunciation.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It's it's a new series that Damon Lindtoff and I
and jj Abrams are working on.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yeah, And he's just a detective and he's going around
looking at land. He's like a he's a purveyor of land.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
He looks at the land and he turns and walks away,
and then he says, actually more to this land than
meets the eye.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
My wife and what Yeah, it's your wife and a
bunch of native people.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Right right in this in this idea, of course, Crystabal
Colombo is solving the crimes that he himself commits.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
There we go easy.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
It's it's essentially memento comparisons have been made. But right,
it would be it would be apt for this fictional
character to look at the land, turn around and come
back and say, actually, there's a lot more to it,
to your example, Noel, Because for a long long time,
(04:59):
we we were sold a myth in this country, we
being the people of what we call the United States,
we were told that there was this vast, sparsely populated
continent rich in all sorts of resources. You want timber boom,
you want salmon boom.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
All you have to do is go out there in
the frontier and capture it. It's waiting for you.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Right right, manifest that destiny. For centuries, the history of
North America was largely ignored or actively suppressed by European
powers exploring and colonizing the continent. Nations on the eastern
side of the Atlantic overwhelmingly depicted North America this way,
a land of exoticism and opportunity, and they ardently and
(05:44):
purposely suppressed the fact that this continent was already home
to a massive assortment of sophisticated, pre existing cultures who
would have been just fine without European intervention and all
the disease and degradation that it brought along with it. So,
if this myth of empty North America is indeed false,
(06:06):
what do we know about it? Like, what are the facts?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Oh sure? I mean, prior to any Europeans showing up
on North American land, there were one hundred and twelve
million people already living somewhere on the continent. And you know,
lower estimates do range to as little as eight million
people from that one hundred and twelve million, So there
(06:30):
is a range because it's not known the exact number
of people. There's no census, there's no any way of
telling how many different peoples. You can you can tell
how many different well, at least close to however, many
different cultures essentially exist just from finding things, but knowing
the exact number of people is very, very difficult.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Right right. The one thing we do know is that
there were millions of people, yes, and they weren't all
just sort of strolling around so as many one hundred
and twelve million people of fourteen ninety two, but by
sixteen fifty that population had already plummeted to less than
six million. The people living at the height of pre
European history had extensive trade networks, They had rich cultural lives,
(07:14):
they had cities, they had internal and external warfare, conflict cooperation,
all the things that Europe was doing. And they had
dense urban areas, which is something that may surprise a
lot of people listening right. Normally, when you think of
pre European populations, we think of people living a perhaps
(07:39):
nomadic existence in some areas of the continent. We think
of complex cave dwellings, perhaps, but we don't think of
a London, you know, or we don't think of a Berlin.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So at least, yeah, an early version of that with
structures and highly organized societ existing within these structures.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So we would like to introduce you to one of
the largest known pre European cities in the on the
continent at the time, a place called Kahokia.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So in its prime, about four centuries before our boy
Colombo stumbled onto the Western hemisphere, walked away, and then
decided to come back.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And you know, dig a little deeper.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Kahokia was a prosperous pre American city with a population
very similar to London. Archaeological data showed that agricultural settlements
first appear in the area around four hundred a d.
And then in ten fifty AD you had a boom
population boom at Cokiya, which became a major political and
cultural center, with the population booming into the tens of thousands.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Yeah, and you know, when you think about something like this,
it's hard to imagine that it could exist anywhere near
current civilization, righty, Oh, that must be out in the
middle of nowhere somewhere, right, because we would know all
about that. We would people in the United States would
travel there to explore the remains or something, right, sure,
(09:11):
But no it was located very close to present day
Saint Louis.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, it's about eight miles out of Saint Louis. It's
located in southern Illinois. This was, by all measures that
we can find, the largest North American city north of Mexico.
At the time. It had been built by a group
of people known as the Mississippians. These were native people
who occupied a large swath of the present day southeastern
(09:39):
US from the Mississippi River to the shores of the Atlantic.
This city, Gohokia, was sophisticated, it was cosmopolitan, but today
its history is virtually unknown, not to just most of
the current US residents, but even two people who live
in the area, present day residents of Illinois, Illinoisians. Illinoisians.
(10:02):
Oh no, I hope that's not Illinoising. Oh wow, not
worth it.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Just throw us in the trash.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
It's this is one of those stories that was bypassed
in favor of that dominant narrative that we see reinforced
in literature, we see reinforced in in cinema. Yeah right,
And it's the idea that the people who lived here
before Europeans ever arrived were somehow less learned, which is
(10:33):
clearly not the case. And there's a guy named Thomas Emerson,
a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, who
had an interesting quote. A lot of the world, he says,
is still relating in terms of cowboys and you know,
quote unquote Indians with feathers and teepees and whatnot. But
in a D one thousand, from the beginning Cochy, it
(10:55):
was laid out to a specific plan. It doesn't grow
into a plan. It starts at as a plan with
a purpose. They created the most massive earthen mounds in
North America. Where does that come from? This is a
good question, It's a really good question. And weirdly enough,
we're looking for cities to compare this to. Well. Hear
that it bore some similarities to London, right, but in
(11:19):
some ways it was like Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It was home to multiple groups of people from across
the lands of the Mississippians. Groups included the Natchez, the Pensacola,
the Choctaw, the Ofo my personal favorite, I don't know
because I've never really heard the name before, and I
like saying Opho.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
It's fun.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Archaeologists conducting strontium tests on the teeth of buried remains.
Have found that a third of the population was not
from Gokia but somewhere else. And this is according to Emerson,
who is the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, we know that the residents of this city, the
people who lived in the city center and the people
who lived on the outskirts, they did city people things. Yeah,
we have forensic traces, archaeological evidence really of their farming, trading,
and hunting efforts. And we know that they also had
urban planners. And these urban planners used astronomical alignments to
(12:18):
lay out a low scale metropolis that ranged, as you said, Matt,
from ten to twenty thousand people. And they planned it
again from the beginning. The cities between six and nine
square miles in area. Inside its borders. As close as
we can estimate, they're about one hundred and twenty earthen mounds.
(12:38):
And one thing we know for sure is the mound
building technology was pretty demanding. This was backbreaking work. We're
talking about stacking. We're digging first off, digging, hauling and stacking.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Because these mounds are underground dwellings or structures. Essentially, it's
like a place to go into. Right, it's a when
you imagine it, I guess in your head, I think
it is ben because of the growing up I guess
being shaped sometimes by these European ideas of what the
(13:18):
United States is. You don't even have a real understanding
of what a mound is when we're talking about them,
you know, like and just talking about how difficult it
is to create a single dwelling place or a building
that would be used for any kind of function, Like
it's You're absolutely right, how difficult that would be.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
A lot of these are tombs as well, and by hand.
This community stacked fifty five million cubic feet of earth
and oh they as far as we know, they did
it just using woven baskets to transport it. The largest mound,
which is later called the Monks Mound after the French
(13:59):
trap is too tended to it in the eighteen hundreds,
was the site of a sizeable building where the city's
political and spiritual leaders met. It was surrounded by a
wooden palisade almost two miles in circumference. The town center
was where residents, pilgrims, and leaders worshiped and held ceremonies
which will be very important later on. Right now, if
(14:21):
we picture the city, think of it the way that
you know, a lot of modern cities are there's a
downtown area and a lot of people will travel there
for work, for leisure lisiu or you know, maybe to
attend certain events, cultural events.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
But just in a short term essentially.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Right, they won't live there, you know. So this city
is no different. Most of the Mississippians live on the
other side of this palisade in these single room homes
you were talking about, Matt the rectangular they're about fifteen
feet long, twelve feet wide. We know this based on
what we were able to to dig up that wooden
post walls covered with mats, thatched roofs. Far from being
(15:05):
a collection of villages or campsites, they were linked with
their own network of courtyards and pathways, kind of the
way streets are laid out.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, and you know there would be physical connections like
you're saying, that actually connect everything together. The different individual
homes have that feeling. It's again so uncharacteristic of the
way sometimes it's depicted, or a way maybe we imagine
in our minds of what a Native American city could
(15:36):
be like.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So we've laid out a bit of the architecture, we've
laid out a bit of this street planning, we've learned
a little bit about the inhabitants. This leads us to
the next question. Where is Kahokia now? Nowadays? There's nothing.
There's a series of mounds right.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Yep, and there's a I mean, that's about it. There's
some ruins and maybe a little bit of evidence left
that there was human activity that occurred in and around
these mounds.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Because you see the metropolis of Cohokia, thousands and thousands
of people, as near as we can tell one day,
disappeared by thirteen fifty, was largely abandoned by its people,
and even today in twenty nineteen, no one knows why.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
And we're going to find out, at least what we
know at this point. After a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Well, first of all, let's say, let's talk about what
we know. It wasn't that caused the disappearance of all
the humans at Hokia, not the usual suspects, things like
war or maybe a disease that came through, because some
Europeans came through. Because we're talking thirteen fifty before fourteen
ninety two, right before some of the early early early landings,
(17:09):
So we don't we know, it's not that and European
Conquest doesn't have anything with it. Nobody came through, like
you know, Hernando de Soto, because this guy was probably
the first person to actually make it to Kokia, right,
and he didn't arrive until fifteen forty that's crazy, almost
two hundred years after it had just been you know, disappeared.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
He looks like he snoozed and he losed I guess.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So, yeah, it's true. By the time De Soto and Co.
Would have which is another show that we're pitching on,
this DeSoto and yeah, yeah, we're doing a shared universe
of European explorers and we're we're adapting, we're adapting it
to modern tastes. So we've got our detective show. M hmm,
(17:55):
Crystal Ball, Colombo, De Soto and Co.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Is what is that?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Just like a buddy comedy, I want to say, yeah,
and Co being like maybe his faithful man servants.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
There we go, tell us who should play these roles?
By the way, you know, there's a lot of talent
out there.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I think Matt Barry would make a really good DeSoto.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Oh, yes, I could see that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Who could be? Who could be? Faithful man servants?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
M Well, let's let's give this the time it deserves.
Let's speak about that.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, let's let it marinate a little bit more, and
let's make some T shirts.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And let's make some T shirts. Yes, yes, surely Matt
Barry will be fine with that.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I want Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Now I'm now I'm wondering, who's like a hot TV actor?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Now, I don't people like that show scandal a lot?
Who's in that? I don't know either.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
I don't watch TV anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Let us know.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Let us know who is on TV?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Who is on who is on TV? Today? And would
they be a good co for DeSoto and Co. It's strange, though,
because he would have seen this empire in decline. He
would not have seen the glory days, the vast parades right,
the grand ceremonies, the hunting parties. He would have instead
(19:13):
seen ruins and mounds. Many of the civilization's villages, the
Mississippians were established near trade routes or sources of water
and food, but Kahokia, like Atlanta, was different. It had
plenty of resources, but it was not built on ideal land.
(19:34):
What we mean when we say Kokia was similar to
Atlanta is the following picture. In your country or your
neck of the global woods, the biggest cities, the biggest
cities in your area. In many cases, if you're talking
about the biggest cities in the country, they will be
built along sources of water. You know they'll be There
(19:56):
will be a city by the bay, there will be
a city by right, things like that, a city by
a gigantic lake or coast or a coast exactly. And
in the case of Atlanta, there is a river called
the Chattahoochee that is in the area. But our real transports,
our real sources of transit are man made. The world's
(20:20):
busiest airport, that's a river of people and goods. We
still have train lines those for a long time replace
the role of rivers. Kahokia did have a ton of resources, timber, fish,
that all that jazz, thanks to their position around these
two rivers in their area. But they were built on
(20:42):
land that was prone to flooding, which makes us wonder
why build something there at all, much less a teeming metropolis.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Well, there seems to be at least somewhat of an explanation,
and it has to do with being able to travel
from various places easily, especially if you were to get
on the water to travel to this place, almost as
if it was meant to be a place to go
in the same way that the downtown was set up,
almost like something that you temporarily go to and then
(21:14):
leave and go back home. Like the entire city. Was
that almost a pilgrimage city where all the Mississippians could
gather for big events.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
A destination. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. So
according to Emerson, again, it may have been a good
area to explore, but not so good to live in
because you know, flooding.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Yeah yeah, no, nobody likes that.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So something changed around a D one thousand. According to
Emerson's that boom we mentioned earlier, it becomes this major
city center. But most of the change doesn't have to
do with the economy, at least according to the experts. Now,
most of it has to do with what we could
(22:00):
in general call religion. So we don't know a lot
of the specifics, but we do know that the city
may have been built primarily for these sacred gatherings and ceremonies.
What do we mean when we say sacred gatherings and ceremonies,
we don't mean it's all pretty.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So, archaeological work has also uncovered a mound containing mass burials.
While the extent of this is still being debated, it
appears that the Mississippians may have conducted a little bit
of light ritual human sacrifice, just a touch a dash
of human sacrifice. And that is judging by what appears
(22:44):
to be Okay, it's not so light. Hundreds of people,
mostly young women, buried in these mass graves. Some of
them were likely strangled, others possibly were bled out. Four
men were found with their heads and hands cut off.
Another burial pit, mostly males, had been clubbed to death,
and researchers have found no specific evidence of any kind
(23:06):
of influence of warfare or invasion from outsiders.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's that's rough. And that's again
why Ben was saying something we could consider religion. Right,
It's not necessarily a belief that was held by everyone,
but there was at least a group of people at
that Ciny center that was killing people.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Well into Nole's point there, it is crucial that we
recognize these were not nothing indicates that these were prisoners
of war.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Yeah, you know what I mean, like the hands, the
guys with their hands cut off and right and all that.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, nothing indicates that would be a situation similar to
Apocalypto or as Mesoamerican civilization is portrayed Apocalypto. Do you
guys remember that movie?
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I remember it existed, I did not see it. I
think I already written off Mel Gibson at that point.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Oh, hadn't already had some weird racist outburst by then?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Let's see, I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It's hard to keep track.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Which is sad?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Right he has he made a comeback.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I don't think so. No, I think he's just because
he is.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
He still canceled.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I believe so, man, I believe so. He called some
he called some law enforcements some terrible things. He's pretty
virulently anti Semitic.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Does that mean Passion of the Christ is canceled too?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I don't know. I still you know that's Have you
guys seen it now?
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I know I never wanted to.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I watched the Satan shows up, so I watched the
Satan clips predictably, but I haven't seen the whole thing.
And uh me and my ex used to sit around
and we'd have the DVD. This is back when DVD's
were a thing, and then we would always ask ourselves,
is tonight the night? You know, we were making dinner,
we want to watch him? Is this the night? Where
(24:53):
we watched Passion in the Christ not exactly a date film,
And we went for years asking ourselves if tonight was
the night? Eventually we had planned we said, you know what,
we're never going to watch this. We're going to get
a bunch of stickers that say is tonight the night,
and then we're going to go to Best Buy and
we're going to stick them on Passion of the Christ ds.
(25:14):
Pretty funny, I mean, is tonight the night? Is a
great sticker to put on stuff?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But you just specifically sought out the Satan scenes on YouTube. Yeah,
you didn't see the bludgeoning or the meaning or the anything.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I wanted to see how they handled infernal powers and
it was pretty spooky.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Isn't he just kind of like a grizzled old man.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
It's if I remember correctly, it's a very very pale, hairless,
feminine looking That's pretty cool. I like that look for
the old devil spooky, spooky stuff. But Mel Gibson aside.
In Apocalypso you will see depictions of hunting parties gathering
(25:53):
people from different tribes outside of the city center, abducting
them and using them as victims of you know, in
a ritual sacrifice. This appears to be a situation where
in the government of the city was sacrificing its own people,
which you know, without it's tricky for us to ascribe
(26:19):
the motives there because we don't know why they were
doing it. You know, we don't know if it was
tied to maybe a seasonal or a turn of the seasons,
or a harvest cycle. We don't know if it was
meant to be an appeasement to some sort of divine force.
Maybe you're sacrificing people to the river, you know what
(26:39):
I mean, I just made that up.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I don't know. Well, yeah, again, like you could, you
could feasibly imagine that it would be to prevent the
rivers from flooding again, right from the land from flooding.
I can totally imagine. That. Doesn't mean it is real
or actually happened, but I can I can see why
you would want to do that or go to those
lengths to prevent a mass so flood from occurring.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
There's another I think you pointed out earlier in that
these people did not all die in the same manner.
So there's another archaeologist, a guy named William I. Isminger,
who is the assistant manager at the Kokuia Mounds, who
posits that there must have, if not involved in sacrifice,
(27:21):
there must have been some sort of external threat, whether
it was from a local source or whether it was
from something very far away. Because the city was raised
and rebuilt four times between eleven seventy five and twelve
seventy five. So imagine the city, the biggest city close
to you as you're listening. Imagine that city collapsing and
(27:45):
being rebuilt four times over one hundred years. We don't
have a ton of cities like that here in the US.
We do have Atlanta, which was burned to the ground,
but that happened once.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I don't want to keep harving on this, but is
it I just wonder if you guys think it's possible
that it was some kind of massive flooding though would occur,
because I can imagine that happening four times in one
hundred years, where the entire area of floods and you
have to rebuild everything. I mean, I can imagine it.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
It's a good hypothesis, you know, because Asminger is not
definitive on his opinion on the mysterious collapse of Kahokia.
He says, maybe they were never attacked, but there was
a threat there, and then leaders felt the need to
expend a tremendous amount of time, labor, and material to
(28:39):
protect this central ceremonial area, you know what I mean.
And then, as we said, after reaching its population height
ten to twenty thousand people, in about eleven hundred, the
population shrinks and by thirteen fifty it's gone kaiser SoSE style,
did they sauce Land's resources? Were they victims of social
(29:02):
upheaval where they finally attacked? Where their droughts? Was their
climate change? Or to your point, Matt, did the waters rise?
Speaker 4 (29:10):
We'll find out after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Did the waters rise one time too many? That's the question.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
So to uncover the clues to the city's fate, a
research team led by the University of Wisconsin Madison geographers
Samuel Munoz and Jack Williams performed laser diffraction particle size
analysis on sediment samples from Horsesoe Lake and Oxbow Lake
near Kahoka, and that is just a shape of a
(29:43):
type of lake. The samples yielded evidence of eight different
separate flood events over the past two thousand years. Drought,
over exploitation of these resources, and human conflict of all
been thrown in the mix as far as reasons are
concerned behind the end of Gohoikia, But an earlier study
of sediments from Horseshoe Lake suggested that major flooding had
(30:06):
occurred in the area around twelve hundred.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
So that would be right around right after the peak population.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Yeah, ooh, okay, okay. Now now I'm getting a bigger
picture about just getting the peak of population and then
something coming by and it being that much more catastrophic.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah. The team analyzed sediments from another lake that was
one hundred and twenty miles or for the rest of
the world, one hundred and ninety kilometers downstream of Horseshoe Lake,
and they found that there was conformation of some sort
of catastrophic flood. The Mississippi River rose more than ten
meters that's thirty three feet, and they believe it played
(30:51):
a critical role in the total abandonment of Cohokia within
one hundred and fifty years. This kind of stuff is
happening in the modern day, you know what I mean,
on monsoon planes. There are people who are continually building
their houses, rebuilding them, evacuating when the waters rise. But
(31:13):
although that is a very strong set of clues, it's
not a definitive thing, you know what I mean. Oh yeah,
But we have to say, for all intents and purposes,
at this point, the mystery remains unsolved, and the strongest
indicator is probably flooding, that the city became flooded one
(31:37):
too many times. But whatever the case, Gohokio was largely
ignored by Europeans and later Americans because it didn't jibe
with that official narrative. It was physical proof of a sophisticated, rich,
dense urban culture existing for centuries before the arrival of Europeans,
and its existence was something that a lot of Europeans
(31:57):
didn't want people to know. And as a matter of fact,
when Europeans came, a lot of native people didn't know
what was going on. They would say, hey, what's that?
What is that? Gigantic, massive series of Mounds, and they
would shrug and say, I don't know, it's always been there.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Yeah, this is ghosts of the past. Essentially, you guys.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Can interuper one second, ask a really important question. Yeah,
Almond Joy or Mounds?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Which one do? They both have? Coconut?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
No coconut? What about you? I prefer Almond Joy. I
like to have a little crunch in my coconut chocolate bar.
What's the difference Mounds? Well, there's the song.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
It's sometimes you feel like a nuts, sometimes you don't.
Almond Joy has gotten nuts. Mounds don't.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Oh, they just happened to have lots of bodies with
their hands and feed Come.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Oh my gosh, I got there, you got there, you
got there. This also, this also inspires me. This has
nothing to do with our episode, but it's a great question.
Should favorite candy bar least favorite? What?
Speaker 4 (33:03):
And why?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I think zero was.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
About to say zero, that's the worst one.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It's the worst one. It's the worst candy bar.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
White chocolate is pretty garbage in general on its son,
unless it's like used as an accent piece and another thing.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Sure, sure why white chocolate shouldn't be just on its own,
But also zero bars are somehow offensive to the palatine.
It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I knew you were going to see bar.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
You know what's up man, I don't know that I've
ever had one of those.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Oh sweet summer child.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Must be nice for you two have yet not been tainted.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
This explains why you're always so happy.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
I know. Hey, I'm just eating hundred grands all the time.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Hundred grand is Now that's a top bar for me.
Hunder Grand's the top bars, quality bar. Big fan of
a what you might call it?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Oh yeah, I remember those?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Remember those had a coal commercial in the nineties too
that did Yeah, kind of a claimation situation.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Going on Tolboro and yes or no all day.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I like Toberon. I like the way it snaps. Yeah,
I don't know what's but I like it dark chocolate
to what is that? Is it toffee that's inside the.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Little I think?
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah so anyway, so yeah, yeah, let let us know.
Also shout out to Netli Crunch. It's it's it's pretty.
I think it's nostalgia that makes me like it.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
You know, are we changing the what we're gonna start
doing on this show every week?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Just talk.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
I'm enjoying this.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
This is a good This is a good question. Also,
I have it on fairly solid authority that other countries
are absolutely smashing the US out of the water in
the candy bar game. No way, yes, way, Ted, all right,
but but yes, going back, it's true. We've seen this
(34:47):
time and time and time again. Long time listeners, you
know that despite what our species propagates about itself in
film and in literature, we're actually terrible at whole holding
on to anything or remembering anything. We lose entire civilizations.
We have no idea, We have no idea where why
(35:09):
some civilizations just stopped. We can guess, we can make
very good, educated guesses, but often we're coming to the
game very very late, because our predecessors did not want
to have the question answered. You know, we're talking about
explorers on the African continent who, when they were explorers
(35:31):
from Europe rather who would find these ornate ruins and
then say something like, well, clearly some other Europeans been
here before.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yeah, or there was some unknown race of humanity that
came down from the stars or from inside the earth
and created this.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It's definitely lizard people.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah. I mean nine out of ten times you're looking
at lizards.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Yep, So let's jump to like, Okay, we've known humanity
has known about these mounds for quite a while. We've
known they have existed, these weird mounds. They're just out there.
But it wasn't until the nineteen sixties, the nineteen sixties
that the burial mounds there in the place of where
(36:19):
Khokia was got protected status.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Right, Yeah, that's correct. And before the nineteen sixties it
was the site of a lot of heavy development. Many
of the mounds were not all of them, but many
were destroyed. They were leveled for farming, right or to
become airfields. People built houses and highways on them. And
currently you can go see this place. It's about eight
(36:43):
miles out of Saint Louis. You can go visit this
ancient loss city and explore conjecture for yourself about what
led twenty thousand people to vanish from it, you know,
in a very short time span.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
You can go to Kahokia dot org, which is c
A h O K I A M O U N
d S dot org if you want to learn more
specifically about how to get there and.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Everything, and this if this is for some of this,
this is our first time hearing about this, this sounds amazing.
A lost civilization in the heart of the United States.
Who wouldn't want to learn more about this story, Who
wouldn't want to lend a hand solving the mystery? It
might be surprised. Currently about two hundred and fifty thousand
(37:30):
people visit this site every year. In comparison, about four
million people visit the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis. So
there's probably not going to be a line. Yeah, you
should be okay, And that's that's the thing that leads
us to another another topic we don't have time to
(37:51):
explore on today's show. How many other things like this
are out here. So Georgia, the state in which our
podcast is base, has a rich pre Columbian history all
its own. A lot of people aren't aware of it.
As a matter of fact, the building in which we
record this show sits atop an ancient sacred spring.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
You guys heard about this, right, I thought you were
going to say Indian burial ground.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
That would explain so much, right, Yeah, there's a there's
a cistern hidden in the tower of the Pond City
Market building and it still collects water from an ancient
sacred spring that was driven underground. History is a palimpsest,
which I think we've said before on the show. So
(38:40):
a palump sest is palm sest is a weird thing,
but a great comparison. Back when paper was much much
more expensive and time consuming and rare, people wouldn't just
throw away a sheet of paper if they needed to
write something down. They would erase the previous information and
(39:00):
right over it. But because of the way they wrote,
we can still see what was there before because there
are indentations in the paper, And that's a lot like
studying history. We're not looking at the stuff written on top.
We're digging deeper. That's what the show is all about.
And the strangest thing is we never quite seem to
(39:23):
get to the bottom.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
And we probably won't ever. We're gonna be making this
show for the next two hundred years. This whole studio
is gonna flood four times the next hundred years.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Well, thankfully, it's all sort of like a mini Noah's
Ark kind of situation. Yeah, keep you described it as
the shipping continna, but it really is. It probably would
just rise with the waters. Yeah, you can just continue
podcasting atop the high seas.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Tarry, Are you gonna be okay to just keep it
rolling while all that's happening? Yeah, she's yeah, she says. Uh. Oh,
she said, of course I got this.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
A big yes.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Sorry. Is so cool, you guys. But she did not
sign up for a catastrophic flood, right she could?
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Che can handle.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I guess most people don't.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
There are very few people who are like, oh, man,
can't wait, I'm so I'm so.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Hype unless you live in Miami.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Oh gosh, that's right, that's right, you have family there.
We hope that you enjoyed this brief exploration of the
mystery of Kohokia. As Matt said, you can visit their
website for more information. And we would like to hear
from you. What are the what are the forgotten monuments
(40:30):
or ruins in your neck of the woods. We talked
a little bit about what was built upon ancient sites
here in Georgia. With just one example, I imagine there
are hundreds, if not thousands, of even better, more explicit examples,
and we want to know yours.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Yeah, and have you ever been to Mississippian culture mound
structure anywhere or a series of mounds anywhere. Have you
been to some of the mounds in Georgia or just
wherever you live? We want we want to know your
experience and if you've heard anything else that we should
learn about, or a whole maybe a whole nother podcast
we should make about that specific culture or location. Please
(41:11):
find us on Facebook or Instagram, where we are Conspiracy
Stuff and Conspiracy Stuff Show. We're also on Twitter hanging
out over there. But let's just, you know, everybody just
try and be nice on Twitter. Okay, let's everybody be nice.
Most of y'all are super.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Cool people not being nice on Twitter, Matt, I've.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Just noticed on Twitter lately there's been a lot of
niceness really, just Twitter at large or our Twitter. It's
just very opinionated, that's all I think. Okay, So if
you don't want to do that stuff, find us on
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy, where we
have the best mods on the planet. Shout out to
you guys.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
People get cranky on there sometimes too, but it's.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Okay again, those mods hold us down. Let's see what
else we got.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
You can check out me and Ben's Instagrammy's if you
want to. I'm at Embryonic Insider. I'm at Ben Bolin, Matt,
I believe you are at Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Where is it, Kylie Jenner?
Speaker 4 (42:01):
I don't know what it is this week.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
You are at the Famous Egg.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
That's it. That's it. I'm an egg. Find me like
my posts, heart them whatever you do on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts. We try to be easy
to find online.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Find this at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook X and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. We're
Conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Show call our number. It's one eight three three st
d WYTK.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Leave a voicemail and if you have more to say,
we can't wait to hear from you at our good
old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
So true story. Four hundred years before crystal Ball Cologne
reached what he thought was India, I.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Mean Christopher Columbus.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, oh, crystal Ball, before he did reach this, for
centuries and centuries, there was a city with a population
similar in size to London right here in North America.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Say what, that's right, Kahokia, not to be confused with
the Kloika.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's different, Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Very very different, very different things. And that's our classic
episode for this evening, folks. Once upon a time, Kuika
was a enormously prosperous city, the largest of its sort
north of Mexico on this continent. And do you guys
remember this episode?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, I just remember that people seem to have abandoned
it and we're not really sure why.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
It feels very mysterious to me, Like the entire episode
is one big mystery.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's very Krakatoa thirteen fifty CE. This metropolis was largely abandoned.
What happened?
Speaker 5 (01:07):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff. They don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works?
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our guest
super producer Tari So reach out and say hi. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know, a bit of
a history episode for us. You guys, we have in
the past explored lost civilizations, and we've explored lost cities
(01:55):
spoiler alert by the way, there are tons and tons
of them around spoiler alert.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We've spoiled Lost and gotten yelled at about it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's true, that's true.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
That's the thing that happened.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I think Loss spoils itself at the edge. I don't
want to throw pot shots at it. But it's a
great show.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
It really is. But then they remade it into a
more fun version and now it's called The Good Place.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
You know, you're right, man, never thought about that connection,
but it is kind of Not only is it more fun, it's.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Just like a better show. It knows where it's going.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
But they do still wrestle with some of the same
philosophical quandaries at the time. I think that's an excellent comparison.
One thing that the good Place does not have that
Lost does have. It is a collection of inexplicable ruins.
You know what I mean? We all look. I'm gonna
spoil it because it's one of the coolest parts. Spoiler
(02:50):
countdown three, two, one, the foot, where's the body? Why?
Why are there only four toes?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Spoiler alert You never find out.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
They will never tell you. But but it turns out
that they're cleaving the show careers of Lost, or cleaving
closer to the truth than you might imagine. The US
is often explained in the following way. In comparison to Europe.
They'll say, in Europe, two hundred miles is a long way.
(03:24):
In the US, two hundred years is a long time.
And we often think about this country in terms of
the beginning of migration across the ocean, right, So we
don't think of all the people who crossed over the
Bearing straight in ancient times. We don't think of the
(03:44):
pre Columbian cultures that rose and fell. We think of
you know, crystal Ball Colombo selling the Ocean blue.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
He sold the Ocean blue. I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Crystal Ball Colombo, Crystal bal columb Okay, hmm.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I was like, I am not aware of this pronunciation.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It's it's a new series that Damon Lindtoff and I
and jj Abrams are working on.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yeah, And he's just a detective and he's going around
looking at land. He's like a he's a purveyor of land.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
He looks at the land and he turns and walks away,
and then he says, actually more to this land than
meets the eye.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
My wife and what Yeah, it's your wife and a
bunch of native people.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Right right in this in this idea, of course, Crystabal
Colombo is solving the crimes that he himself commits.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
There we go easy.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
It's it's essentially memento comparisons have been made. But right,
it would be it would be apt for this fictional
character to look at the land, turn around and come
back and say, actually, there's a lot more to it,
to your example, Noel, Because for a long long time,
(04:59):
we we were sold a myth in this country, we
being the people of what we call the United States,
we were told that there was this vast, sparsely populated
continent rich in all sorts of resources. You want timber boom,
you want salmon boom.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
All you have to do is go out there in
the frontier and capture it. It's waiting for you.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Right right, manifest that destiny. For centuries, the history of
North America was largely ignored or actively suppressed by European
powers exploring and colonizing the continent. Nations on the eastern
side of the Atlantic overwhelmingly depicted North America this way,
a land of exoticism and opportunity, and they ardently and
(05:44):
purposely suppressed the fact that this continent was already home
to a massive assortment of sophisticated, pre existing cultures who
would have been just fine without European intervention and all
the disease and degradation that it brought along with it. So,
if this myth of empty North America is indeed false,
(06:06):
what do we know about it? Like, what are the facts?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Oh sure? I mean, prior to any Europeans showing up
on North American land, there were one hundred and twelve
million people already living somewhere on the continent. And you know,
lower estimates do range to as little as eight million
people from that one hundred and twelve million, So there
(06:30):
is a range because it's not known the exact number
of people. There's no census, there's no any way of
telling how many different peoples. You can you can tell
how many different well, at least close to however, many
different cultures essentially exist just from finding things, but knowing
the exact number of people is very, very difficult.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Right right. The one thing we do know is that
there were millions of people, yes, and they weren't all
just sort of strolling around so as many one hundred
and twelve million people of fourteen ninety two, but by
sixteen fifty that population had already plummeted to less than
six million. The people living at the height of pre
European history had extensive trade networks, They had rich cultural lives,
(07:14):
they had cities, they had internal and external warfare, conflict cooperation,
all the things that Europe was doing. And they had
dense urban areas, which is something that may surprise a
lot of people listening right. Normally, when you think of
pre European populations, we think of people living a perhaps
(07:39):
nomadic existence in some areas of the continent. We think
of complex cave dwellings, perhaps, but we don't think of
a London, you know, or we don't think of a Berlin.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So at least, yeah, an early version of that with
structures and highly organized societ existing within these structures.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So we would like to introduce you to one of
the largest known pre European cities in the on the
continent at the time, a place called Kahokia.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So in its prime, about four centuries before our boy
Colombo stumbled onto the Western hemisphere, walked away, and then
decided to come back.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And you know, dig a little deeper.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Kahokia was a prosperous pre American city with a population
very similar to London. Archaeological data showed that agricultural settlements
first appear in the area around four hundred a d.
And then in ten fifty AD you had a boom
population boom at Cokiya, which became a major political and
cultural center, with the population booming into the tens of thousands.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Yeah, and you know, when you think about something like this,
it's hard to imagine that it could exist anywhere near
current civilization, righty, Oh, that must be out in the
middle of nowhere somewhere, right, because we would know all
about that. We would people in the United States would
travel there to explore the remains or something, right, sure,
(09:11):
But no it was located very close to present day
Saint Louis.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah, it's about eight miles out of Saint Louis. It's
located in southern Illinois. This was, by all measures that
we can find, the largest North American city north of Mexico.
At the time. It had been built by a group
of people known as the Mississippians. These were native people
who occupied a large swath of the present day southeastern
(09:39):
US from the Mississippi River to the shores of the Atlantic.
This city, Gohokia, was sophisticated, it was cosmopolitan, but today
its history is virtually unknown, not to just most of
the current US residents, but even two people who live
in the area, present day residents of Illinois, Illinoisians. Illinoisians.
(10:02):
Oh no, I hope that's not Illinoising. Oh wow, not
worth it.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Just throw us in the trash.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
It's this is one of those stories that was bypassed
in favor of that dominant narrative that we see reinforced
in literature, we see reinforced in in cinema. Yeah right,
And it's the idea that the people who lived here
before Europeans ever arrived were somehow less learned, which is
(10:33):
clearly not the case. And there's a guy named Thomas Emerson,
a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, who
had an interesting quote. A lot of the world, he says,
is still relating in terms of cowboys and you know,
quote unquote Indians with feathers and teepees and whatnot. But
in a D one thousand, from the beginning Cochy, it
(10:55):
was laid out to a specific plan. It doesn't grow
into a plan. It starts at as a plan with
a purpose. They created the most massive earthen mounds in
North America. Where does that come from? This is a
good question, It's a really good question. And weirdly enough,
we're looking for cities to compare this to. Well. Hear
that it bore some similarities to London, right, but in
(11:19):
some ways it was like Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It was home to multiple groups of people from across
the lands of the Mississippians. Groups included the Natchez, the Pensacola,
the Choctaw, the Ofo my personal favorite, I don't know
because I've never really heard the name before, and I
like saying Opho.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
It's fun.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Archaeologists conducting strontium tests on the teeth of buried remains.
Have found that a third of the population was not
from Gokia but somewhere else. And this is according to Emerson,
who is the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, we know that the residents of this city, the
people who lived in the city center and the people
who lived on the outskirts, they did city people things. Yeah,
we have forensic traces, archaeological evidence really of their farming, trading,
and hunting efforts. And we know that they also had
urban planners. And these urban planners used astronomical alignments to
(12:18):
lay out a low scale metropolis that ranged, as you said, Matt,
from ten to twenty thousand people. And they planned it
again from the beginning. The cities between six and nine
square miles in area. Inside its borders. As close as
we can estimate, they're about one hundred and twenty earthen mounds.
(12:38):
And one thing we know for sure is the mound
building technology was pretty demanding. This was backbreaking work. We're
talking about stacking. We're digging first off, digging, hauling and stacking.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Because these mounds are underground dwellings or structures. Essentially, it's
like a place to go into. Right, it's a when
you imagine it, I guess in your head, I think
it is ben because of the growing up I guess
being shaped sometimes by these European ideas of what the
(13:18):
United States is. You don't even have a real understanding
of what a mound is when we're talking about them,
you know, like and just talking about how difficult it
is to create a single dwelling place or a building
that would be used for any kind of function, Like
it's You're absolutely right, how difficult that would be.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
A lot of these are tombs as well, and by hand.
This community stacked fifty five million cubic feet of earth
and oh they as far as we know, they did
it just using woven baskets to transport it. The largest mound,
which is later called the Monks Mound after the French
(13:59):
trap is too tended to it in the eighteen hundreds,
was the site of a sizeable building where the city's
political and spiritual leaders met. It was surrounded by a
wooden palisade almost two miles in circumference. The town center
was where residents, pilgrims, and leaders worshiped and held ceremonies
which will be very important later on. Right now, if
(14:21):
we picture the city, think of it the way that
you know, a lot of modern cities are there's a
downtown area and a lot of people will travel there
for work, for leisure lisiu or you know, maybe to
attend certain events, cultural events.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
But just in a short term essentially.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Right, they won't live there, you know. So this city
is no different. Most of the Mississippians live on the
other side of this palisade in these single room homes
you were talking about, Matt the rectangular they're about fifteen
feet long, twelve feet wide. We know this based on
what we were able to to dig up that wooden
post walls covered with mats, thatched roofs. Far from being
(15:05):
a collection of villages or campsites, they were linked with
their own network of courtyards and pathways, kind of the
way streets are laid out.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, and you know there would be physical connections like
you're saying, that actually connect everything together. The different individual
homes have that feeling. It's again so uncharacteristic of the
way sometimes it's depicted, or a way maybe we imagine
in our minds of what a Native American city could
(15:36):
be like.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So we've laid out a bit of the architecture, we've
laid out a bit of this street planning, we've learned
a little bit about the inhabitants. This leads us to
the next question. Where is Kahokia now? Nowadays? There's nothing.
There's a series of mounds right.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Yep, and there's a I mean, that's about it. There's
some ruins and maybe a little bit of evidence left
that there was human activity that occurred in and around
these mounds.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Because you see the metropolis of Cohokia, thousands and thousands
of people, as near as we can tell one day,
disappeared by thirteen fifty, was largely abandoned by its people,
and even today in twenty nineteen, no one knows why.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
And we're going to find out, at least what we
know at this point. After a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Well, first of all, let's say, let's talk about what
we know. It wasn't that caused the disappearance of all
the humans at Hokia, not the usual suspects, things like
war or maybe a disease that came through, because some
Europeans came through. Because we're talking thirteen fifty before fourteen
ninety two, right before some of the early early early landings,
(17:09):
So we don't we know, it's not that and European
Conquest doesn't have anything with it. Nobody came through, like
you know, Hernando de Soto, because this guy was probably
the first person to actually make it to Kokia, right,
and he didn't arrive until fifteen forty that's crazy, almost
two hundred years after it had just been you know, disappeared.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
He looks like he snoozed and he losed I guess.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So, yeah, it's true. By the time De Soto and Co.
Would have which is another show that we're pitching on,
this DeSoto and yeah, yeah, we're doing a shared universe
of European explorers and we're we're adapting, we're adapting it
to modern tastes. So we've got our detective show. M hmm,
(17:55):
Crystal Ball, Colombo, De Soto and Co.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Is what is that?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Just like a buddy comedy, I want to say, yeah,
and Co being like maybe his faithful man servants.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
There we go, tell us who should play these roles?
By the way, you know, there's a lot of talent
out there.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I think Matt Barry would make a really good DeSoto.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Oh, yes, I could see that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Who could be? Who could be? Faithful man servants?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
M Well, let's let's give this the time it deserves.
Let's speak about that.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, let's let it marinate a little bit more, and
let's make some T shirts.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And let's make some T shirts. Yes, yes, surely Matt
Barry will be fine with that.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I want Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Now I'm now I'm wondering, who's like a hot TV actor?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Now, I don't people like that show scandal a lot?
Who's in that? I don't know either.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
I don't watch TV anymore.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Let us know.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Let us know who is on TV?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Who is on who is on TV? Today? And would
they be a good co for DeSoto and Co. It's strange, though,
because he would have seen this empire in decline. He
would not have seen the glory days, the vast parades right,
the grand ceremonies, the hunting parties. He would have instead
(19:13):
seen ruins and mounds. Many of the civilization's villages, the
Mississippians were established near trade routes or sources of water
and food, but Kahokia, like Atlanta, was different. It had
plenty of resources, but it was not built on ideal land.
(19:34):
What we mean when we say Kokia was similar to
Atlanta is the following picture. In your country or your
neck of the global woods, the biggest cities, the biggest
cities in your area. In many cases, if you're talking
about the biggest cities in the country, they will be
built along sources of water. You know they'll be There
(19:56):
will be a city by the bay, there will be
a city by right, things like that, a city by
a gigantic lake or coast or a coast exactly. And
in the case of Atlanta, there is a river called
the Chattahoochee that is in the area. But our real transports,
our real sources of transit are man made. The world's
(20:20):
busiest airport, that's a river of people and goods. We
still have train lines those for a long time replace
the role of rivers. Kahokia did have a ton of resources, timber, fish,
that all that jazz, thanks to their position around these
two rivers in their area. But they were built on
(20:42):
land that was prone to flooding, which makes us wonder
why build something there at all, much less a teeming metropolis.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Well, there seems to be at least somewhat of an explanation,
and it has to do with being able to travel
from various places easily, especially if you were to get
on the water to travel to this place, almost as
if it was meant to be a place to go
in the same way that the downtown was set up,
almost like something that you temporarily go to and then
(21:14):
leave and go back home. Like the entire city. Was
that almost a pilgrimage city where all the Mississippians could
gather for big events.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
A destination. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. So
according to Emerson, again, it may have been a good
area to explore, but not so good to live in
because you know, flooding.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Yeah yeah, no, nobody likes that.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
So something changed around a D one thousand. According to
Emerson's that boom we mentioned earlier, it becomes this major
city center. But most of the change doesn't have to
do with the economy, at least according to the experts. Now,
most of it has to do with what we could
(22:00):
in general call religion. So we don't know a lot
of the specifics, but we do know that the city
may have been built primarily for these sacred gatherings and ceremonies.
What do we mean when we say sacred gatherings and ceremonies,
we don't mean it's all pretty.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So, archaeological work has also uncovered a mound containing mass burials.
While the extent of this is still being debated, it
appears that the Mississippians may have conducted a little bit
of light ritual human sacrifice, just a touch a dash
of human sacrifice. And that is judging by what appears
(22:44):
to be Okay, it's not so light. Hundreds of people,
mostly young women, buried in these mass graves. Some of
them were likely strangled, others possibly were bled out. Four
men were found with their heads and hands cut off.
Another burial pit, mostly males, had been clubbed to death,
and researchers have found no specific evidence of any kind
(23:06):
of influence of warfare or invasion from outsiders.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's that's rough. And that's again
why Ben was saying something we could consider religion. Right,
It's not necessarily a belief that was held by everyone,
but there was at least a group of people at
that Ciny center that was killing people.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Well into Nole's point there, it is crucial that we
recognize these were not nothing indicates that these were prisoners
of war.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Yeah, you know what I mean, like the hands, the
guys with their hands cut off and right and all that.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, nothing indicates that would be a situation similar to
Apocalypto or as Mesoamerican civilization is portrayed Apocalypto. Do you
guys remember that movie?
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I remember it existed, I did not see it. I
think I already written off Mel Gibson at that point.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Oh, hadn't already had some weird racist outburst by then?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Let's see, I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It's hard to keep track.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Which is sad?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Right he has he made a comeback.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I don't think so. No, I think he's just because
he is.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
He still canceled.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
I believe so, man, I believe so. He called some
he called some law enforcements some terrible things. He's pretty
virulently anti Semitic.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Does that mean Passion of the Christ is canceled too?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I don't know. I still you know that's Have you
guys seen it now?
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I know I never wanted to.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I watched the Satan shows up, so I watched the
Satan clips predictably, but I haven't seen the whole thing.
And uh me and my ex used to sit around
and we'd have the DVD. This is back when DVD's
were a thing, and then we would always ask ourselves,
is tonight the night? You know, we were making dinner,
we want to watch him? Is this the night? Where
(24:53):
we watched Passion in the Christ not exactly a date film,
And we went for years asking ourselves if tonight was
the night? Eventually we had planned we said, you know what,
we're never going to watch this. We're going to get
a bunch of stickers that say is tonight the night,
and then we're going to go to Best Buy and
we're going to stick them on Passion of the Christ ds.
(25:14):
Pretty funny, I mean, is tonight the night? Is a
great sticker to put on stuff?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But you just specifically sought out the Satan scenes on YouTube. Yeah,
you didn't see the bludgeoning or the meaning or the anything.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I wanted to see how they handled infernal powers and
it was pretty spooky.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Isn't he just kind of like a grizzled old man.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
It's if I remember correctly, it's a very very pale, hairless,
feminine looking That's pretty cool. I like that look for
the old devil spooky, spooky stuff. But Mel Gibson aside.
In Apocalypso you will see depictions of hunting parties gathering
(25:53):
people from different tribes outside of the city center, abducting
them and using them as victims of you know, in
a ritual sacrifice. This appears to be a situation where
in the government of the city was sacrificing its own people,
which you know, without it's tricky for us to ascribe
(26:19):
the motives there because we don't know why they were
doing it. You know, we don't know if it was
tied to maybe a seasonal or a turn of the seasons,
or a harvest cycle. We don't know if it was
meant to be an appeasement to some sort of divine force.
Maybe you're sacrificing people to the river, you know what
(26:39):
I mean, I just made that up.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I don't know. Well, yeah, again, like you could, you
could feasibly imagine that it would be to prevent the
rivers from flooding again, right from the land from flooding.
I can totally imagine. That. Doesn't mean it is real
or actually happened, but I can I can see why
you would want to do that or go to those
lengths to prevent a mass so flood from occurring.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
There's another I think you pointed out earlier in that
these people did not all die in the same manner.
So there's another archaeologist, a guy named William I. Isminger,
who is the assistant manager at the Kokuia Mounds, who
posits that there must have, if not involved in sacrifice,
(27:21):
there must have been some sort of external threat, whether
it was from a local source or whether it was
from something very far away. Because the city was raised
and rebuilt four times between eleven seventy five and twelve
seventy five. So imagine the city, the biggest city close
to you as you're listening. Imagine that city collapsing and
(27:45):
being rebuilt four times over one hundred years. We don't
have a ton of cities like that here in the US.
We do have Atlanta, which was burned to the ground,
but that happened once.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I don't want to keep harving on this, but is
it I just wonder if you guys think it's possible
that it was some kind of massive flooding though would occur,
because I can imagine that happening four times in one
hundred years, where the entire area of floods and you
have to rebuild everything. I mean, I can imagine it.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
It's a good hypothesis, you know, because Asminger is not
definitive on his opinion on the mysterious collapse of Kahokia.
He says, maybe they were never attacked, but there was
a threat there, and then leaders felt the need to
expend a tremendous amount of time, labor, and material to
(28:39):
protect this central ceremonial area, you know what I mean.
And then, as we said, after reaching its population height
ten to twenty thousand people, in about eleven hundred, the
population shrinks and by thirteen fifty it's gone kaiser SoSE style,
did they sauce Land's resources? Were they victims of social
(29:02):
upheaval where they finally attacked? Where their droughts? Was their
climate change? Or to your point, Matt, did the waters rise?
Speaker 4 (29:10):
We'll find out after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Did the waters rise one time too many? That's the question.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
So to uncover the clues to the city's fate, a
research team led by the University of Wisconsin Madison geographers
Samuel Munoz and Jack Williams performed laser diffraction particle size
analysis on sediment samples from Horsesoe Lake and Oxbow Lake
near Kahoka, and that is just a shape of a
(29:43):
type of lake. The samples yielded evidence of eight different
separate flood events over the past two thousand years. Drought,
over exploitation of these resources, and human conflict of all
been thrown in the mix as far as reasons are
concerned behind the end of Gohoikia, But an earlier study
of sediments from Horseshoe Lake suggested that major flooding had
(30:06):
occurred in the area around twelve hundred.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
So that would be right around right after the peak population.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Yeah, ooh, okay, okay. Now now I'm getting a bigger
picture about just getting the peak of population and then
something coming by and it being that much more catastrophic.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah. The team analyzed sediments from another lake that was
one hundred and twenty miles or for the rest of
the world, one hundred and ninety kilometers downstream of Horseshoe Lake,
and they found that there was conformation of some sort
of catastrophic flood. The Mississippi River rose more than ten
meters that's thirty three feet, and they believe it played
(30:51):
a critical role in the total abandonment of Cohokia within
one hundred and fifty years. This kind of stuff is
happening in the modern day, you know what I mean,
on monsoon planes. There are people who are continually building
their houses, rebuilding them, evacuating when the waters rise. But
(31:13):
although that is a very strong set of clues, it's
not a definitive thing, you know what I mean. Oh yeah,
But we have to say, for all intents and purposes,
at this point, the mystery remains unsolved, and the strongest
indicator is probably flooding, that the city became flooded one
(31:37):
too many times. But whatever the case, Gohokio was largely
ignored by Europeans and later Americans because it didn't jibe
with that official narrative. It was physical proof of a sophisticated, rich,
dense urban culture existing for centuries before the arrival of Europeans,
and its existence was something that a lot of Europeans
(31:57):
didn't want people to know. And as a matter of fact,
when Europeans came, a lot of native people didn't know
what was going on. They would say, hey, what's that?
What is that? Gigantic, massive series of Mounds, and they
would shrug and say, I don't know, it's always been there.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Yeah, this is ghosts of the past. Essentially, you guys.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Can interuper one second, ask a really important question. Yeah,
Almond Joy or Mounds?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Which one do? They both have? Coconut?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
No coconut? What about you? I prefer Almond Joy. I
like to have a little crunch in my coconut chocolate bar.
What's the difference Mounds? Well, there's the song.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
It's sometimes you feel like a nuts, sometimes you don't.
Almond Joy has gotten nuts. Mounds don't.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Oh, they just happened to have lots of bodies with
their hands and feed Come.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Oh my gosh, I got there, you got there, you
got there. This also, this also inspires me. This has
nothing to do with our episode, but it's a great question.
Should favorite candy bar least favorite? What?
Speaker 4 (33:03):
And why?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I think zero was.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
About to say zero, that's the worst one.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It's the worst one. It's the worst candy bar.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
White chocolate is pretty garbage in general on its son,
unless it's like used as an accent piece and another thing.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Sure, sure why white chocolate shouldn't be just on its own,
But also zero bars are somehow offensive to the palatine.
It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
I knew you were going to see bar.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
You know what's up man, I don't know that I've
ever had one of those.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Oh sweet summer child.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Must be nice for you two have yet not been tainted.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
This explains why you're always so happy.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
I know. Hey, I'm just eating hundred grands all the time.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Hundred grand is Now that's a top bar for me.
Hunder Grand's the top bars, quality bar. Big fan of
a what you might call it?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Oh yeah, I remember those?
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Remember those had a coal commercial in the nineties too
that did Yeah, kind of a claimation situation.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Going on Tolboro and yes or no all day.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I like Toberon. I like the way it snaps. Yeah,
I don't know what's but I like it dark chocolate
to what is that? Is it toffee that's inside the.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Little I think?
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah so anyway, so yeah, yeah, let let us know.
Also shout out to Netli Crunch. It's it's it's pretty.
I think it's nostalgia that makes me like it.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
You know, are we changing the what we're gonna start
doing on this show every week?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Just talk.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
I'm enjoying this.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
This is a good This is a good question. Also,
I have it on fairly solid authority that other countries
are absolutely smashing the US out of the water in
the candy bar game. No way, yes, way, Ted, all right,
but but yes, going back, it's true. We've seen this
(34:47):
time and time and time again. Long time listeners, you
know that despite what our species propagates about itself in
film and in literature, we're actually terrible at whole holding
on to anything or remembering anything. We lose entire civilizations.
We have no idea, We have no idea where why
(35:09):
some civilizations just stopped. We can guess, we can make
very good, educated guesses, but often we're coming to the
game very very late, because our predecessors did not want
to have the question answered. You know, we're talking about
explorers on the African continent who, when they were explorers
(35:31):
from Europe rather who would find these ornate ruins and
then say something like, well, clearly some other Europeans been
here before.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yeah, or there was some unknown race of humanity that
came down from the stars or from inside the earth
and created this.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It's definitely lizard people.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah. I mean nine out of ten times you're looking
at lizards.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Yep, So let's jump to like, Okay, we've known humanity
has known about these mounds for quite a while. We've
known they have existed, these weird mounds. They're just out there.
But it wasn't until the nineteen sixties, the nineteen sixties
that the burial mounds there in the place of where
(36:19):
Khokia was got protected status.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Right, Yeah, that's correct. And before the nineteen sixties it
was the site of a lot of heavy development. Many
of the mounds were not all of them, but many
were destroyed. They were leveled for farming, right or to
become airfields. People built houses and highways on them. And
currently you can go see this place. It's about eight
(36:43):
miles out of Saint Louis. You can go visit this
ancient loss city and explore conjecture for yourself about what
led twenty thousand people to vanish from it, you know,
in a very short time span.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
You can go to Kahokia dot org, which is c
A h O K I A M O U N
d S dot org if you want to learn more
specifically about how to get there and.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Everything, and this if this is for some of this,
this is our first time hearing about this, this sounds amazing.
A lost civilization in the heart of the United States.
Who wouldn't want to learn more about this story, Who
wouldn't want to lend a hand solving the mystery? It
might be surprised. Currently about two hundred and fifty thousand
(37:30):
people visit this site every year. In comparison, about four
million people visit the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis. So
there's probably not going to be a line. Yeah, you
should be okay, And that's that's the thing that leads
us to another another topic we don't have time to
(37:51):
explore on today's show. How many other things like this
are out here. So Georgia, the state in which our
podcast is base, has a rich pre Columbian history all
its own. A lot of people aren't aware of it.
As a matter of fact, the building in which we
record this show sits atop an ancient sacred spring.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
You guys heard about this, right, I thought you were
going to say Indian burial ground.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
That would explain so much, right, Yeah, there's a there's
a cistern hidden in the tower of the Pond City
Market building and it still collects water from an ancient
sacred spring that was driven underground. History is a palimpsest,
which I think we've said before on the show. So
(38:40):
a palump sest is palm sest is a weird thing,
but a great comparison. Back when paper was much much
more expensive and time consuming and rare, people wouldn't just
throw away a sheet of paper if they needed to
write something down. They would erase the previous information and
(39:00):
right over it. But because of the way they wrote,
we can still see what was there before because there
are indentations in the paper, And that's a lot like
studying history. We're not looking at the stuff written on top.
We're digging deeper. That's what the show is all about.
And the strangest thing is we never quite seem to
(39:23):
get to the bottom.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
And we probably won't ever. We're gonna be making this
show for the next two hundred years. This whole studio
is gonna flood four times the next hundred years.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Well, thankfully, it's all sort of like a mini Noah's
Ark kind of situation. Yeah, keep you described it as
the shipping continna, but it really is. It probably would
just rise with the waters. Yeah, you can just continue
podcasting atop the high seas.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Tarry, Are you gonna be okay to just keep it
rolling while all that's happening? Yeah, she's yeah, she says. Uh. Oh,
she said, of course I got this.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
A big yes.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
Sorry. Is so cool, you guys. But she did not
sign up for a catastrophic flood, right she could?
Speaker 4 (40:00):
Che can handle.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I guess most people don't.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
There are very few people who are like, oh, man,
can't wait, I'm so I'm so.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Hype unless you live in Miami.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Oh gosh, that's right, that's right, you have family there.
We hope that you enjoyed this brief exploration of the
mystery of Kohokia. As Matt said, you can visit their
website for more information. And we would like to hear
from you. What are the what are the forgotten monuments
(40:30):
or ruins in your neck of the woods. We talked
a little bit about what was built upon ancient sites
here in Georgia. With just one example, I imagine there
are hundreds, if not thousands, of even better, more explicit examples,
and we want to know yours.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Yeah, and have you ever been to Mississippian culture mound
structure anywhere or a series of mounds anywhere. Have you
been to some of the mounds in Georgia or just
wherever you live? We want we want to know your
experience and if you've heard anything else that we should
learn about, or a whole maybe a whole nother podcast
we should make about that specific culture or location. Please
(41:11):
find us on Facebook or Instagram, where we are Conspiracy
Stuff and Conspiracy Stuff Show. We're also on Twitter hanging
out over there. But let's just, you know, everybody just
try and be nice on Twitter. Okay, let's everybody be nice.
Most of y'all are super.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Cool people not being nice on Twitter, Matt, I've.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Just noticed on Twitter lately there's been a lot of
niceness really, just Twitter at large or our Twitter. It's
just very opinionated, that's all I think. Okay, So if
you don't want to do that stuff, find us on
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy, where we
have the best mods on the planet. Shout out to
you guys.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
People get cranky on there sometimes too, but it's.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Okay again, those mods hold us down. Let's see what
else we got.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
You can check out me and Ben's Instagrammy's if you
want to. I'm at Embryonic Insider. I'm at Ben Bolin, Matt,
I believe you are at Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Where is it, Kylie Jenner?
Speaker 4 (42:01):
I don't know what it is this week.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
You are at the Famous Egg.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
That's it. That's it. I'm an egg. Find me like
my posts, heart them whatever you do on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts. We try to be easy
to find online.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
Find this at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook X and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. We're
Conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Show call our number. It's one eight three three st
d WYTK.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Leave a voicemail and if you have more to say,
we can't wait to hear from you at our good
old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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