March 29, 2019 • 43 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.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined with
our guest super producer TRII. 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. When we've explored
(00:46):
lost cities. Uh spoiler alert, by the way, there are
tons and tons of them around spoiler alert, we've spoiled
Lost and gotten yelled at about it. That's true, that's true.
That's the thing that happened. I think Lost spoils itself
at the end. Think that's fair. I don't want to
throw pot shots at it. But it's a great show.
It really is. But then they remade it into a
(01:07):
more fun version and now it's called The Good Place.
You know, you're right, man, never thought about that connection.
But it is kind of not only is it more fun.
It's just like a better show and knows where it's going,
you know, and they have, but they do still wrestle
with some of the same philosophical quandaries, and I think
that's an excellent comparison. Um. One thing that the Good
(01:29):
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 part the hatches spoiler countdown three to one?
Where's the body? Why? Why are there really four toes?
(01:52):
Spoiler alert? You never find out. They will never tell you,
but but it turns out that they're leaving the show.
Careers have lost their cleaving closer to the truth than
you might imagine. The US is often um explained in
the following way. In comparison to Europe. They'll say in Europe,
(02:14):
two hundred miles is a long way. 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
(02:35):
ancient times. We don't think of the pre Columbian cultures
that rose and fell. We think of, you know, Cristo
baal Colombo selling the Ocean Blue. He sold the Ocean Blue.
I completely agree, Cristo bal Colombo. Cristo bal Cologne. Okay.
I was like, I'm not aware of this pronunciation. It's
(02:58):
a it's a new series that day in Lindoff and
I and J. J. Abrams are working on. Yeah, and
he's just a detective. He's going around looking at land.
He's like a he's a purveyor of land. Like he
looks at the land and he turns and walks away,
and then he says, actually more to this land than
meets the eye. And my wife and what, yeah, it's
(03:18):
your wife, and uh, a bunch of native people right
right in this in this idea, of course, Christobal Colombo
is solving the crimes that he himself commits. There we
go easy. It's it's essentially memento comparisons have been made.
But right, it would be it would be apt for
(03:40):
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. And well, because for a
long long time 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
(04:03):
continent rich in all sorts of resources. You want timber boom,
you want salmon boom, All you have to do is
go out there in the frontier and capture it. It's
waiting for you, 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
(04:27):
on the eastern side of the Atlantic overwhelmingly depicted North
America this way a land of exoticism and opportunity, and
they ardently and 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
(04:50):
along with it. So, if this myth of empty North
America is indeed false, what do we know about out it? Like?
What are the facts? Oh sure? I mean, prior to
any Europeans showing up on North American land, there were
a hundred and twelve million people already living somewhere on
(05:14):
the continent. And you know, lower estimates do range to
as little as eight million people from that twelve million,
So there 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 people's You can you
can tell how many different um well, at least close
(05:34):
to however, many different um cultures essentially exist just from
finding things, but knowing the exact number of people is
very very difficult, right, right. The one thing we do
know is that there were millions of people, and they
weren't all just sort of strolling around. So as many
as one are in twelve million people in fourteen ninety two,
but by sixteen fifty that population had already plummeted to
(05:58):
less than six billion. The people living at the heights
of pre European history had extensive trade networks, they had
rich cultural lives, 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
(06:20):
may surprise a lot of people listening. Right. Normally, when
you think of pre European populations, we think of people
living am perhaps nomadic existence in some areas of the continent.
We think of um complex cave dwellings perhaps, but we
(06:40):
don't we don't think of a London, you know, we
don't think of a Berlin. So at least an early
version of that with structures and highly organized society existing
within these structures. So we would like to introduce you
to one of the largest known pre European city is
(07:01):
in the on the continent at the time, a place
called Cohokio. So in its prime, about four centuries before
our boy Colombo uh stumbled onto the Western hemisphere, um
walked away and then decided to come back, and you know,
dig a little deeper, Uh. Cahokia was a prosperous pre
American city with a population very similar to London. Um.
(07:22):
Archaeological data showed that agricultural settlements first appeared in the
area around four a d. And then in ten fIF
D you had a boom population boom at Cokia, which
became a major political and cultural center, with the population
booming into the tens of thousands. Yeah, and you know,
when you think about something like this, it's hard to
(07:45):
imagine that it could exist anywhere near current civilization. Right. 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. But no, it was located very
(08:06):
close to present day St. Louis. Yeah, it's about eight
miles out of St. 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
(08:28):
large swath of the present day southeastern US from the
Mississippi River to the shores of the Atlantic. This city,
go Hokia, 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
(08:49):
the area, present day residents of Illinois, Illinoisians. Illinoisians. Oh, no,
I hope that's not Illinois. Not worth it. Just throw
us in the 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 um
(09:13):
in cinema, right, And it's the idea that the people
who lived here before Europeans ever arrived were somehow uh
less learned, which is 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
(09:34):
lot of the world, he says, is still relating in
terms of cowboys and you know, quote unquote Indians with
feathers and tps and whatnot. But in a D one thousand,
from the beginning coke, it was laid out to a
specific plan. It doesn't grow into a plan. It starts
as a plan with a purpose. They created the most
(09:55):
massive earthen mound in North America. Where does that come from?
It's a good question, it's a really good question. And
weirdly enough, we're looking for cities to compare this to.
We'll hear that it bore some similarities to London, right,
but in some ways it was like Manhattan. Yeah, it's true.
(10:15):
It was home to multiple groups of people from across
the lands of the Mississippians. UM groups included the Natchez,
the Pensacola, the Choctaw, the o Fo my personal favorite.
I don't know because I've never really heard the name before,
and I like saying o Fo. It's fun. Archaeologists conducting
strontium tests on the teeth of buried remains have found
(10:35):
that a third of the population was not from Kakia,
but somewhere else. And this is according to Emerson, who
is the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. 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 that
(10:57):
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
lay out a low scale metropolis that ranged, as you said,
ment from ten to twenty thousand people. And they planned
(11:18):
it again from the beginning. The cities between six and
nine square miles in area. Inside its borders. As close
as we can estimate, there about a hundred and twenty
earthen mounds. And one thing we know for sure is
the mound building technology was pretty demanding. This was backbreaking work.
(11:40):
We're talking about stacking. We're digging first off, digging, hauling
and stacking because these are these mounds are underground dwellings
or structures. Essentially, it's like a place to go into, right,
It's a h when you when you imagine it. Um,
I guess in your and I think it is been
(12:01):
because of the um growing up, I guess being shaped
sometimes by these European ideas of what the 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
(12:24):
used for any kind of function, Like it's You're absolutely right,
how difficult that would be. A lot of these are
tombs as well, and by hand. This community stacked fifty
five million cubic feet of earth and they, as far
as we know, they did it just using woven baskets
(12:45):
to transport it. The largest mound, which is later called
the Monks Mound after the French Trappists who attended 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
(13:08):
leaders worshiped and held ceremonies, which will be very important
later on. Right now, if 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, Liza,
or you know, maybe to attend certain events, cultural events,
(13:32):
but just in a short term, essentially, 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 about fifteen ft long, twelve feet wide.
We know, we know this based on what we were
(13:52):
able to dig up, the wooden post walls covered with mats,
thatched roofs. Far from being a collection of villages or campsite,
they were linked with their own network of courtyards and pathways,
kind of the way streets are laid out, and and
and you know, there would be physical connections, like you're
(14:12):
saying that actually connect everything together. The different individual homes
have that feeling. It's it's um again, so un characteristic
of the way sometimes it's depicted or away. Maybe we
imagine in our minds of what a Native American city
could be like. So we've laid out a bit of
(14:33):
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 yep, and
there's a I mean, that's that's about it. There's some
(14:55):
ruins and maybe a little bit of evidence left that
there was human the activity that occurred in and around
these mounts, 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
(15:18):
its people, and even today in no one knows why.
And we're going to find out at least what we
know at this point. After a quick word from our sponsor,
here's where it gets crazy. Well, but first of all,
(15:40):
let's say, let's talk about what we know. It wasn't
that caused the disappearance of all the humans at Cokia. Uh,
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 two, right before some of
the earlier early landings, So we don't we know it's
(16:03):
not that and European conquest doesn't have anything with it.
Nobody came through like um, you know Hernando de Soto,
because this guy was probably the first person to actually
make it to Coo Kia, right, and he didn't arrive
until fifteen forty. That's crazy, almost two hundred years after
it had just been you know, disappeared. He looks like
(16:25):
he snoozed and he losed, I guess. So yeah, it's
true by the time De Soto and Co. Would have
which is another show that we're pitching on this De
Soto and yeah, Yeah, we're doing a shared universe of
European explorers and we're we're adapting, we're adapting it to
(16:45):
modern taste. So we've got our detective show Christobal Colombo, Uh,
de Soto and co. Is what is that it's like
a buddy comedy, I want to say, and Co being
like maybe his faithful man servants. Very tell us who
should play these roles? By the way, you know, there's
(17:05):
a lot of talent out there. I think Matt Barry
would make a really good De Soto. Oh yes, I
could see that. Who could be who could be? Faithful
man servants? M Well, let's let's give this the time
it deserves. Let's think about that, Let's let it marinate
a little bit, and let's make some T shirts. And
let's make some T shirts. Yes, yes, surely Matt Barry
(17:27):
will be fine with that. I went, yeah, No, I'm no.
I'm wondering, who's like a hot TV actor? Now? I
don't people like that show Scandal a lot? Who's in that?
I don't know either. I don't watch TV anymore. Let
us know, let us know who is on TV? Who
is who is on TV? Today? And would they be
(17:48):
a good co for De Soto 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
seen ruins and mounds. Many of the civilizations, villages the Mississippians,
(18:14):
were established near trade routes or sources of water and food.
But Cookia, like Atlanta, was different. It had plenty of resources,
but it was not built on ideal land. What we
mean when we say Cookia was similar to Atlanta is
the following picture. In your country or your neck of
(18:35):
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 will be
a city by the bay. There will be a city
by a river, right, things like that, a city by
a gigantic lake, coast or a coast exactly. And in
(18:59):
the case of Atlanta, there is a river called the
Chattahoochee that is in the area. But our real transports
are real sources of transit are man made, the world's
busiest airport. That's a river of people and goods. Um
We still have train lines, those for a long time
(19:20):
replace the role of rivers. Cookia did have a ton
of resources, timber, fish, all that all that jazz. Thanks
to their position around these two rivers in their area.
But they were built on land that was prone to flooding,
which makes us wonder why build something there at all,
(19:43):
much less a teeming metropolis. 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
be a place to go. Uh, in the same way
that the downtown was set up, almost like something that
(20:05):
you temporarily go to and then leave and go back home.
Like the entire city was that almost a pilgrimage city
where all the Mississippians could gather for big events, a destination, 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. Yeah, no,
(20:30):
nobody likes that. 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
(20:51):
what we could 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. Yeah. So,
(21:14):
archaeological work has also uncovered amount containing mass burials. Um.
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 to touch a dash
of human sacrifice. Um. And that is judging by what
(21:37):
appears to be Okay, it's not so light. Hundreds of people,
mostly young women, buried in these mass graves. Uh. Some
of them were likely strangled, others possibly were bled out. Um.
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
(22:00):
of influence of warfare or invasion from outsiders. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean that's that's rough. And that's again why why
Ben was saying something you could consider religion. Right, it's
not necessarily belief that was held by everyone. But there
was at least a group of people at that city
(22:21):
center that was killing people. Well into Noel's point there,
it is crucial that we recognize these were not Nothing
indicates that these were prisoners of war, you know what
I mean, like the hands, the guys with their hands
cut off and right and all that. Yeah, nothing indicates
that would be a situation similar to Apocalypto or as
(22:44):
Mesoamerican civilization is portrayed Apocalypto. Do you guys remember that movie?
I remember it existed, I had not see it. I
think I've already written off Mel Gibson at that point.
Hadn't he already had some weird racist outburst by then?
Let's see, you can't remember. It's hard to keep tracking,
which is sad. Rights he is he made to come back.
I don't think so. I think he's just because he is.
(23:05):
He still canceled. I believe so, you believe so? He
uh he called some he called some law enforcements and
terrible things. He's pretty virently anti Semitic. Does that mean
passion of the Christ is canceled too? I don't know.
I still you know that's have you guys seen it? Now?
I know I never wanted to. I watched the Satan
(23:28):
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 DVDs were a thing, and then
we would always ask ourselves, is tonight the night? You
know we're making dinner we want to watch? Is this
the night? Where we watched Passion of the Christ? Not
(23:48):
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's ay,
is tonight the night? And then we're gonna go to
best Buy. We're gonna stick him on Passion of the
Christ e v ds. That's a really good it's pretty funny.
(24:09):
I mean, is tonight the night? Is a great sticker
to put on stuff? But you just specifically sought out
the Satan scenes on YouTube? Yeah, you can't see the
bludgeoning or the beating or them. And I wanted to
see how they handled infernal powers, and it was pretty spooky.
Is he just kind of like a grizzled old man.
It's uh, if I remember correctly, it's a very very pale, hairless,
(24:30):
feminine looking figure. That's pretty cool. I like that. Look
for for the Old Devil. Spooky spooky stuff. But Mel
Gibson aside. In Apocalypto, you will see depictions of hunting
parties gathering people from different tribes outside of the city center,
abducting them and using them as victims of you know,
(24:55):
in a ritual sacrifice. This appears to be a situation
and wherein the government of the city was sacrificing its
own people, which you know, without it's tricky for us
to um to ascribe the motives there because we don't
know why they were doing it. You know, we don't
(25:16):
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 I mean, I just
made that up. I don't know. Well, yeah, again, like
you could, You could feasibly imagine that it would be
(25:38):
too 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 massive flood from occurring.
There's another if you pointed out earlier and all that
(25:58):
these people did not all I in the same manner, right,
So there's another archaeologist, a guy named William is min Germ,
who is the assistant manager at the Kochia Mounds, who
who posits that there must have, if not involved in sacrifice,
there must have been some sort of external threat, whether
(26:19):
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
being rebuilt four times over a hundred years. Right, we
(26:42):
don't have a ton of cities like that here in
the US. We do have Atlanta, which was burned to
the ground, right, But that happened once. Okay, 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 that would occur, because
I can imagine that happening four times in a hundred years,
(27:07):
where the entire area floods and you have to rebuild everything.
I mean, I can imagine it. It's a good hypothesis,
you know, because as Majuror 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
(27:29):
amount of time, labor, and material to protect this central
ceremonial area, you know what I mean. And then, as
we said, after reaching its population height ten people in
about eleven hundred, the population shrinks and BYTT it's gone
(27:50):
Kaiser Soca style. Did they exhaust lance resources? Were they
victims of social upheaval where they finally attacked, where their droughts?
Was their climate change or two point matt did the
waters rise? We'll find out after a quick word from
our sponsor. Did the waters rise one time too many?
(28:15):
And that's the question. So to uncover the clues to
the city's fad, a research team led by the University
of Wisconsin Madison geographers Samuel Muno's and Jack Williams performed
laser diffraction particle size analysis on sediment samples from Horseshoe Lake,
an oxbow lake near Cohoka, and that is as just
(28:36):
a shape of a type of lake. The samples yielded
evidence of eight different separate flood events over the past
two thousand years. Um 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
Go Hooka. But an earlier study of sediments from Horseshoe
(28:57):
Lake suggested the major flood had occurred in the area
around twelve hundred, So that would be right right around
right after the peak population. 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
(29:18):
much more catastrophic. Yeah. The team analyzed sediments from another
lake that was a hundred and twenty miles or for
the rest of the world, KOs downstream of Horseshoe Lake,
and they found that there was confirmation of some sort
of catastrophic flood. The Mississippi River rose more than ten
(29:40):
meters that's thirty three feet, and they believe it played
a critical role in the total abandonment of Kokia within
a 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 senually building
(30:00):
their houses, rebuilding them, evacuating when the waters rise. But
although that is a very strong um set of clues,
it's not a definitive thing, you know what I mean.
But we have to say for all intents and purposes,
at this point, the mystery remains unsolved, and the strongest
(30:24):
indicator is is probably flooding, that the city became flooded
one too many times. But whatever the case, Cohokio 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
(30:46):
the arrival of Europeans, and its existence was something that
a lot of Europeans 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. Yeah, this is ghosts
(31:09):
of the past essentially, you guys, can I interfer one second?
Ask a really important question? Almon enjoy or mounds? Which one? Do?
They both have? Coconut? Yes, give me some coconut. What
about you? I prefer allm enjoy. I like to have
a little crunch in in my coconut chocolate bar. What's
(31:31):
the difference mounds? Well, there's the song. It's sometimes you
feel like a nuts, sometimes you don't. Almon Joys got nuts,
mounds don't. They just happened to have lots of bodies
with their hands and feet. Oh my gosh, I got there,
You got there, you got there. Uh. This also this
also inspires me. This has nothing to do with our episode,
(31:52):
but it's a great question. Uh favorite candy bar? Least favorite? What?
And why? I think Zero is about to say here
that's the worst one. It's the worst one. It's the worst.
White chocolate is pretty garbage in general on his son,
unless it's like used as an accent piece. And another thing. Sure,
sure white white chocolate shouldn't be just on its own,
but also zero bars are somehow offensive to the pal.
(32:17):
It's so funny. I knew you were gonna want to
see you know what's up man? I don't know that
I've ever had one of those, sweet summer child. Must
be nice for you to have yet not been tainted.
This explains why you're always so happy. I know. Yeah,
I'm just eating hundred grands all the under grand is. Now,
that's a top bar for me, undergrounds, the top bar.
(32:40):
Big fan of Achma call it Remember a Co commercial
in the nineties too that did yeah, kind of acclaimation
situation going on, tollbar and yes or no all day.
I like tobaron I like the way it snaps. Yeah,
I don't know what's in it, but I like it.
The dark chocolate tobaron is what is that? What's is it?
Toffee that's inside a little pieces stuff? Yeah? Yeah, so anyway,
(33:02):
so yeah, yeah, let let us know. Um also shout
out to nestly crunch. It's it's it's pretty. I think
it's a nostalgia that makes me like it. You know,
are we changing the what we're gonna start doing on
this show every week just for candy bars? Because I'm
enjoying this. This is a good This is a good question. Also,
I have it on on fairly solid authority that other
(33:25):
countries are absolutely smashing the US out of the water
in the candy bar game. Yes, waited, but but yes,
going back, Um, it's true. We've seen this time and
time and time again. Long time listeners, you know that
despite what our species propagates about itself in in film
(33:50):
and in literature, we're actually terrible and holding onto anything
or remembering anything. We lose entire civilizations. We have no idea,
We have no idea where why 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,
(34:13):
because our predecessors did not want to have the question answered. Well.
You know, we're talking about explorers on the African continent
who when they explorers from Europe rather, who would find
these um or nate ruins and then say something like Oh,
(34:34):
clearly some other European's been here before. Yeah, or there
was some unknown race of humanity that came down from
the stars or from inside the earth and created this
definitely lizard people, yeah, I mean nine out of ten
times you're looking at lizards. Yep. So let's uh, let's
(34:55):
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 Cochia was got
protected status, right, Yeah, that's correct. And before the nineteen
(35:17):
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 air fields. People built houses and highways on them.
And currently you can go see this place. It's about
eight miles out of St. Louis. You can go visit
(35:39):
this ancient lost city and explore conjecture for yourself about
what led twenty people to vanish from it. You know,
in a very short time span, you can go to
Cahokia Mounds dot org, which is c A h okay
I A m o U n d s dot org
(35:59):
if you want to learn more specifically about how to
get there and everything. And this if 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 might be surprised. Currently, about two
(36:22):
d and fifty thousand people visit this site every year.
In comparison, about four million people visit the Gateway Arch
in St. 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 where
(36:44):
we don't have time to explore on today's show. How
many other things like this are out here. So Georgia,
the state in which our podcast is based, has a
rich pre Columbian history all its own. A lot of
people aren't aware of it. As a matter fact, the
building in which we record this show sits atop an
(37:04):
ancient sacred spring. You guys heard about this, Right, that's
how you're gonna say Indian burial ground, and 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
(37:25):
that was driven underground. History is a palamp sessed um,
which I think we've said before on this show. So
a palam cessed is and the palm sess is a
weird thing, but a great comparison. Back when paper was
much much more expensive and time consuming and rare, people
(37:46):
wouldn't just throw away a sheet of paper if they
needed to write something down. They would erase the previous
information and right over it. But because of the way
they wrote, we can still see what was there before,
because as there are indentations in the paper. And that's
a lot like studying history. We're not looking at this
(38:07):
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 get to the bottom, 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 d years. Thankfully. It's a
(38:29):
sort of like a mini Noah's Our kind of situation,
like you keep you described as the ship and container,
but it really is. It probably would just rise with
the waters. We just continue podcasting atop the high seas. Sari,
you're gonna be okay to just keep it rolling while
all that's happening. Yeah, she's she's yeah, she says, uh oh,
she said, of course I got this big Yes. Sorry,
is so cool, you guys, But she did not sign
(38:50):
up for a catastrophic flood, right, she can handle. I
guess most people don't. Yeah, exactly. Are very few people
who are like, oh, man, can't wait, I'm so I'm
so hype, unless you live in Miami. Oh gosh, that's right.
That's right. Family there. We hope that you enjoyed this
brief exploration of the mystery of Coo Kia. As Matt said,
(39:14):
you can visit their website for more information, and we
would like to hear from you what are the what
are the forgotten monuments or ruins in your neck of
the woods. We talked a little bit about what was
built upon ancient uh sites here in Georgia. With just
one example, I imagine there are hundreds, if not thousands,
(39:37):
of even better, more explicit examples, and we want to
know yours. Yeah, and have you ever been to Mississippian
culture mound structure anywhere, or a series of mounds anywhere?
Have you've been to some of the mounds in Georgia
or just wherever you live? We want to know. We
wanna know your experience and if you've heard anything else
that we should learn about it, or a whole maybe
(39:58):
a whole another podcast we should make about that specific
culture or location. Please 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 you all are super
cool people not being nice on Twitter, Matt, I've just
(40:21):
noticed on Twitter lately there's been a lot of not
niceness really just Twitter at large. There are 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. People get cranky on there sometimes too, but
it's okay. We again those mods hold us down. Let's
(40:43):
see what else we got. Um. You can check out
me and Ben's instagram e's if you want to. I'm
at Embryonic Insider, I'm at Ben Bowling. Matt. I believe
you are at Kim Kardashian or is it j I
don't know what it is this week. You are at
the Famous Egg. That's it. That's it. I'm a fund
of me like my posts, part them. Whatever you do
(41:06):
on Instagram. Just kidding. Don't find me there. Hey, but
what if? What if I am a fan of the show.
I have something my fellow listeners would love to hear,
and I would to reach the show, but I hate
social needs. Check it out. Pick up your old phone. Yeah,
if you've got a dial tone, then you're good to go.
You'll even work on our rotary. It'll work. Just just
(41:26):
type in one eight three three st d w y
t k K only one K yes, but just stuff
they don't want you to know, and leave us a voicemail.
It's you get three minutes to tell your story if
you don't get it in in three minutes, then you
got a call back and do it again. We recommend
practicing it in front of the mirror a few times
(41:47):
before committing um, because we will shame you the second one.
It's fine, but just you know, much like the Network USA,
we characters are well welcome on our things, So just
go ahead and just get weird with it if you
want to or be super sincere, we accept all and
if it's something that you do not want shared with
(42:09):
your fellow listeners, all that we ask is that you
say so in the recordings so that we don't air
your business. If it's just a private message, we totally understand.
And to Knowle's point, I absolutely agree from personal experience
trying to leave a voicemail for this show. I think
I did it like five times because I wasn't ready,
(42:30):
and we mocked you aggressively. Then I think justly so
we would never do that to our buddy Ben. But
there is one other way. If you hate phones, we
get If you hate the social media stuff, totally get it.
You can still contact us. Just say our names three
times in a mirror in a dark room, or send
(42:50):
us an email. We are conspiracy and how Stuff Works
dot com. M Stuff They Don't Want You to Know
(43:14):
is a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined with
our guest super producer TRII. 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. When we've explored
(00:46):
lost cities. Uh spoiler alert, by the way, there are
tons and tons of them around spoiler alert, we've spoiled
Lost and gotten yelled at about it. That's true, that's true.
That's the thing that happened. I think Lost spoils itself
at the end. Think that's fair. I don't want to
throw pot shots at it. But it's a great show.
It really is. But then they remade it into a
(01:07):
more fun version and now it's called The Good Place.
You know, you're right, man, never thought about that connection.
But it is kind of not only is it more fun.
It's just like a better show and knows where it's going,
you know, and they have, but they do still wrestle
with some of the same philosophical quandaries, and I think
that's an excellent comparison. Um. One thing that the Good
(01:29):
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 part the hatches spoiler countdown three to one?
Where's the body? Why? Why are there really four toes?
(01:52):
Spoiler alert? You never find out. They will never tell you,
but but it turns out that they're leaving the show.
Careers have lost their cleaving closer to the truth than
you might imagine. The US is often um explained in
the following way. In comparison to Europe. They'll say in Europe,
(02:14):
two hundred miles is a long way. 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
(02:35):
ancient times. We don't think of the pre Columbian cultures
that rose and fell. We think of, you know, Cristo
baal Colombo selling the Ocean Blue. He sold the Ocean Blue.
I completely agree, Cristo bal Colombo. Cristo bal Cologne. Okay.
I was like, I'm not aware of this pronunciation. It's
(02:58):
a it's a new series that day in Lindoff and
I and J. J. Abrams are working on. Yeah, and
he's just a detective. He's going around looking at land.
He's like a he's a purveyor of land. Like he
looks at the land and he turns and walks away,
and then he says, actually more to this land than
meets the eye. And my wife and what, yeah, it's
(03:18):
your wife, and uh, a bunch of native people right
right in this in this idea, of course, Christobal Colombo
is solving the crimes that he himself commits. There we
go easy. It's it's essentially memento comparisons have been made.
But right, it would be it would be apt for
(03:40):
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. And well, because for a
long long time 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
(04:03):
continent rich in all sorts of resources. You want timber boom,
you want salmon boom, All you have to do is
go out there in the frontier and capture it. It's
waiting for you, 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
(04:27):
on the eastern side of the Atlantic overwhelmingly depicted North
America this way a land of exoticism and opportunity, and
they ardently and 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
(04:50):
along with it. So, if this myth of empty North
America is indeed false, what do we know about out it? Like?
What are the facts? Oh sure? I mean, prior to
any Europeans showing up on North American land, there were
a hundred and twelve million people already living somewhere on
(05:14):
the continent. And you know, lower estimates do range to
as little as eight million people from that twelve million,
So there 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 people's You can you
can tell how many different um well, at least close
(05:34):
to however, many different um cultures essentially exist just from
finding things, but knowing the exact number of people is
very very difficult, right, right. The one thing we do
know is that there were millions of people, and they
weren't all just sort of strolling around. So as many
as one are in twelve million people in fourteen ninety two,
but by sixteen fifty that population had already plummeted to
(05:58):
less than six billion. The people living at the heights
of pre European history had extensive trade networks, they had
rich cultural lives, 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
(06:20):
may surprise a lot of people listening. Right. Normally, when
you think of pre European populations, we think of people
living am perhaps nomadic existence in some areas of the continent.
We think of um complex cave dwellings perhaps, but we
(06:40):
don't we don't think of a London, you know, we
don't think of a Berlin. So at least an early
version of that with structures and highly organized society existing
within these structures. So we would like to introduce you
to one of the largest known pre European city is
(07:01):
in the on the continent at the time, a place
called Cohokio. So in its prime, about four centuries before
our boy Colombo uh stumbled onto the Western hemisphere, um
walked away and then decided to come back, and you know,
dig a little deeper, Uh. Cahokia was a prosperous pre
American city with a population very similar to London. Um.
(07:22):
Archaeological data showed that agricultural settlements first appeared in the
area around four a d. And then in ten fIF
D you had a boom population boom at Cokia, which
became a major political and cultural center, with the population
booming into the tens of thousands. Yeah, and you know,
when you think about something like this, it's hard to
(07:45):
imagine that it could exist anywhere near current civilization. Right. 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. But no, it was located very
(08:06):
close to present day St. Louis. Yeah, it's about eight
miles out of St. 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
(08:28):
large swath of the present day southeastern US from the
Mississippi River to the shores of the Atlantic. This city,
go Hokia, 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
(08:49):
the area, present day residents of Illinois, Illinoisians. Illinoisians. Oh, no,
I hope that's not Illinois. Not worth it. Just throw
us in the 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 um
(09:13):
in cinema, right, And it's the idea that the people
who lived here before Europeans ever arrived were somehow uh
less learned, which is 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
(09:34):
lot of the world, he says, is still relating in
terms of cowboys and you know, quote unquote Indians with
feathers and tps and whatnot. But in a D one thousand,
from the beginning coke, it was laid out to a
specific plan. It doesn't grow into a plan. It starts
as a plan with a purpose. They created the most
(09:55):
massive earthen mound in North America. Where does that come from?
It's a good question, it's a really good question. And
weirdly enough, we're looking for cities to compare this to.
We'll hear that it bore some similarities to London, right,
but in some ways it was like Manhattan. Yeah, it's true.
(10:15):
It was home to multiple groups of people from across
the lands of the Mississippians. UM groups included the Natchez,
the Pensacola, the Choctaw, the o Fo my personal favorite.
I don't know because I've never really heard the name before,
and I like saying o Fo. It's fun. Archaeologists conducting
strontium tests on the teeth of buried remains have found
(10:35):
that a third of the population was not from Kakia,
but somewhere else. And this is according to Emerson, who
is the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. 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 that
(10:57):
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
lay out a low scale metropolis that ranged, as you said,
ment from ten to twenty thousand people. And they planned
(11:18):
it again from the beginning. The cities between six and
nine square miles in area. Inside its borders. As close
as we can estimate, there about a hundred and twenty
earthen mounds. And one thing we know for sure is
the mound building technology was pretty demanding. This was backbreaking work.
(11:40):
We're talking about stacking. We're digging first off, digging, hauling
and stacking because these are these mounds are underground dwellings
or structures. Essentially, it's like a place to go into, right,
It's a h when you when you imagine it. Um,
I guess in your and I think it is been
(12:01):
because of the um growing up, I guess being shaped
sometimes by these European ideas of what the 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
(12:24):
used for any kind of function, Like it's You're absolutely right,
how difficult that would be. A lot of these are
tombs as well, and by hand. This community stacked fifty
five million cubic feet of earth and they, as far
as we know, they did it just using woven baskets
(12:45):
to transport it. The largest mound, which is later called
the Monks Mound after the French Trappists who attended 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
(13:08):
leaders worshiped and held ceremonies, which will be very important
later on. Right now, if 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, Liza,
or you know, maybe to attend certain events, cultural events,
(13:32):
but just in a short term, essentially, 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 about fifteen ft long, twelve feet wide.
We know, we know this based on what we were
(13:52):
able to dig up, the wooden post walls covered with mats,
thatched roofs. Far from being a collection of villages or campsite,
they were linked with their own network of courtyards and pathways,
kind of the way streets are laid out, and and
and you know, there would be physical connections, like you're
(14:12):
saying that actually connect everything together. The different individual homes
have that feeling. It's it's um again, so un characteristic
of the way sometimes it's depicted or away. Maybe we
imagine in our minds of what a Native American city
could be like. So we've laid out a bit of
(14:33):
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 yep, and
there's a I mean, that's that's about it. There's some
(14:55):
ruins and maybe a little bit of evidence left that
there was human the activity that occurred in and around
these mounts, 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
(15:18):
its people, and even today in no one knows why.
And we're going to find out at least what we
know at this point. After a quick word from our sponsor,
here's where it gets crazy. Well, but first of all,
(15:40):
let's say, let's talk about what we know. It wasn't
that caused the disappearance of all the humans at Cokia. Uh,
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 two, right before some of
the earlier early landings, So we don't we know it's
(16:03):
not that and European conquest doesn't have anything with it.
Nobody came through like um, you know Hernando de Soto,
because this guy was probably the first person to actually
make it to Coo Kia, right, and he didn't arrive
until fifteen forty. That's crazy, almost two hundred years after
it had just been you know, disappeared. He looks like
(16:25):
he snoozed and he losed, I guess. So yeah, it's
true by the time De Soto and Co. Would have
which is another show that we're pitching on this De
Soto and yeah, Yeah, we're doing a shared universe of
European explorers and we're we're adapting, we're adapting it to
(16:45):
modern taste. So we've got our detective show Christobal Colombo, Uh,
de Soto and co. Is what is that it's like
a buddy comedy, I want to say, and Co being
like maybe his faithful man servants. Very tell us who
should play these roles? By the way, you know, there's
(17:05):
a lot of talent out there. I think Matt Barry
would make a really good De Soto. Oh yes, I
could see that. Who could be who could be? Faithful
man servants? M Well, let's let's give this the time
it deserves. Let's think about that, Let's let it marinate
a little bit, and let's make some T shirts. And
let's make some T shirts. Yes, yes, surely Matt Barry
(17:27):
will be fine with that. I went, yeah, No, I'm no.
I'm wondering, who's like a hot TV actor? Now? I
don't people like that show Scandal a lot? Who's in that?
I don't know either. I don't watch TV anymore. Let
us know, let us know who is on TV? Who
is who is on TV? Today? And would they be
(17:48):
a good co for De Soto 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
seen ruins and mounds. Many of the civilizations, villages the Mississippians,
(18:14):
were established near trade routes or sources of water and food.
But Cookia, like Atlanta, was different. It had plenty of resources,
but it was not built on ideal land. What we
mean when we say Cookia was similar to Atlanta is
the following picture. In your country or your neck of
(18:35):
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 will be
a city by the bay. There will be a city
by a river, right, things like that, a city by
a gigantic lake, coast or a coast exactly. And in
(18:59):
the case of Atlanta, there is a river called the
Chattahoochee that is in the area. But our real transports
are real sources of transit are man made, the world's
busiest airport. That's a river of people and goods. Um
We still have train lines, those for a long time
(19:20):
replace the role of rivers. Cookia did have a ton
of resources, timber, fish, all that all that jazz. Thanks
to their position around these two rivers in their area.
But they were built on land that was prone to flooding,
which makes us wonder why build something there at all,
(19:43):
much less a teeming metropolis. 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
be a place to go. Uh, in the same way
that the downtown was set up, almost like something that
(20:05):
you temporarily go to and then leave and go back home.
Like the entire city was that almost a pilgrimage city
where all the Mississippians could gather for big events, a destination, 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. Yeah, no,
(20:30):
nobody likes that. 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
(20:51):
what we could 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. Yeah. So,
(21:14):
archaeological work has also uncovered amount containing mass burials. Um.
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 to touch a dash
of human sacrifice. Um. And that is judging by what
(21:37):
appears to be Okay, it's not so light. Hundreds of people,
mostly young women, buried in these mass graves. Uh. Some
of them were likely strangled, others possibly were bled out. Um.
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
(22:00):
of influence of warfare or invasion from outsiders. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean that's that's rough. And that's again why why
Ben was saying something you could consider religion. Right, it's
not necessarily belief that was held by everyone. But there
was at least a group of people at that city
(22:21):
center that was killing people. Well into Noel's point there,
it is crucial that we recognize these were not Nothing
indicates that these were prisoners of war, you know what
I mean, like the hands, the guys with their hands
cut off and right and all that. Yeah, nothing indicates
that would be a situation similar to Apocalypto or as
(22:44):
Mesoamerican civilization is portrayed Apocalypto. Do you guys remember that movie?
I remember it existed, I had not see it. I
think I've already written off Mel Gibson at that point.
Hadn't he already had some weird racist outburst by then?
Let's see, you can't remember. It's hard to keep tracking,
which is sad. Rights he is he made to come back.
I don't think so. I think he's just because he is.
(23:05):
He still canceled. I believe so, you believe so? He
uh he called some he called some law enforcements and
terrible things. He's pretty virently anti Semitic. Does that mean
passion of the Christ is canceled too? I don't know.
I still you know that's have you guys seen it? Now?
I know I never wanted to. I watched the Satan
(23:28):
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 DVDs were a thing, and then
we would always ask ourselves, is tonight the night? You
know we're making dinner we want to watch? Is this
the night? Where we watched Passion of the Christ? Not
(23:48):
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's ay,
is tonight the night? And then we're gonna go to
best Buy. We're gonna stick him on Passion of the
Christ e v ds. That's a really good it's pretty funny.
(24:09):
I mean, is tonight the night? Is a great sticker
to put on stuff? But you just specifically sought out
the Satan scenes on YouTube? Yeah, you can't see the
bludgeoning or the beating or them. And I wanted to
see how they handled infernal powers, and it was pretty spooky.
Is he just kind of like a grizzled old man.
It's uh, if I remember correctly, it's a very very pale, hairless,
(24:30):
feminine looking figure. That's pretty cool. I like that. Look
for for the Old Devil. Spooky spooky stuff. But Mel
Gibson aside. In Apocalypto, you will see depictions of hunting
parties gathering people from different tribes outside of the city center,
abducting them and using them as victims of you know,
(24:55):
in a ritual sacrifice. This appears to be a situation
and wherein the government of the city was sacrificing its
own people, which you know, without it's tricky for us
to um to ascribe the motives there because we don't
know why they were doing it. You know, we don't
(25:16):
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 I mean, I just
made that up. I don't know. Well, yeah, again, like
you could, You could feasibly imagine that it would be
(25:38):
too 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 massive flood from occurring.
There's another if you pointed out earlier and all that
(25:58):
these people did not all I in the same manner, right,
So there's another archaeologist, a guy named William is min Germ,
who is the assistant manager at the Kochia Mounds, who
who posits that there must have, if not involved in sacrifice,
there must have been some sort of external threat, whether
(26:19):
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
being rebuilt four times over a hundred years. Right, we
(26:42):
don't have a ton of cities like that here in
the US. We do have Atlanta, which was burned to
the ground, right, But that happened once. Okay, 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 that would occur, because
I can imagine that happening four times in a hundred years,
(27:07):
where the entire area floods and you have to rebuild everything.
I mean, I can imagine it. It's a good hypothesis,
you know, because as Majuror 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
(27:29):
amount of time, labor, and material to protect this central
ceremonial area, you know what I mean. And then, as
we said, after reaching its population height ten people in
about eleven hundred, the population shrinks and BYTT it's gone
(27:50):
Kaiser Soca style. Did they exhaust lance resources? Were they
victims of social upheaval where they finally attacked, where their droughts?
Was their climate change or two point matt did the
waters rise? We'll find out after a quick word from
our sponsor. Did the waters rise one time too many?
(28:15):
And that's the question. So to uncover the clues to
the city's fad, a research team led by the University
of Wisconsin Madison geographers Samuel Muno's and Jack Williams performed
laser diffraction particle size analysis on sediment samples from Horseshoe Lake,
an oxbow lake near Cohoka, and that is as just
(28:36):
a shape of a type of lake. The samples yielded
evidence of eight different separate flood events over the past
two thousand years. Um 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
Go Hooka. But an earlier study of sediments from Horseshoe
(28:57):
Lake suggested the major flood had occurred in the area
around twelve hundred, So that would be right right around
right after the peak population. 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
(29:18):
much more catastrophic. Yeah. The team analyzed sediments from another
lake that was a hundred and twenty miles or for
the rest of the world, KOs downstream of Horseshoe Lake,
and they found that there was confirmation of some sort
of catastrophic flood. The Mississippi River rose more than ten
(29:40):
meters that's thirty three feet, and they believe it played
a critical role in the total abandonment of Kokia within
a 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 senually building
(30:00):
their houses, rebuilding them, evacuating when the waters rise. But
although that is a very strong um set of clues,
it's not a definitive thing, you know what I mean.
But we have to say for all intents and purposes,
at this point, the mystery remains unsolved, and the strongest
(30:24):
indicator is is probably flooding, that the city became flooded
one too many times. But whatever the case, Cohokio 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
(30:46):
the arrival of Europeans, and its existence was something that
a lot of Europeans 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. Yeah, this is ghosts
(31:09):
of the past essentially, you guys, can I interfer one second?
Ask a really important question? Almon enjoy or mounds? Which one? Do?
They both have? Coconut? Yes, give me some coconut. What
about you? I prefer allm enjoy. I like to have
a little crunch in in my coconut chocolate bar. What's
(31:31):
the difference mounds? Well, there's the song. It's sometimes you
feel like a nuts, sometimes you don't. Almon Joys got nuts,
mounds don't. They just happened to have lots of bodies
with their hands and feet. Oh my gosh, I got there,
You got there, you got there. Uh. This also this
also inspires me. This has nothing to do with our episode,
(31:52):
but it's a great question. Uh favorite candy bar? Least favorite? What?
And why? I think Zero is about to say here
that's the worst one. It's the worst one. It's the worst.
White chocolate is pretty garbage in general on his son,
unless it's like used as an accent piece. And another thing. Sure,
sure white white chocolate shouldn't be just on its own,
but also zero bars are somehow offensive to the pal.
(32:17):
It's so funny. I knew you were gonna want to
see you know what's up man? I don't know that
I've ever had one of those, sweet summer child. Must
be nice for you to have yet not been tainted.
This explains why you're always so happy. I know. Yeah,
I'm just eating hundred grands all the under grand is. Now,
that's a top bar for me, undergrounds, the top bar.
(32:40):
Big fan of Achma call it Remember a Co commercial
in the nineties too that did yeah, kind of acclaimation
situation going on, tollbar and yes or no all day.
I like tobaron I like the way it snaps. Yeah,
I don't know what's in it, but I like it.
The dark chocolate tobaron is what is that? What's is it?
Toffee that's inside a little pieces stuff? Yeah? Yeah, so anyway,
(33:02):
so yeah, yeah, let let us know. Um also shout
out to nestly crunch. It's it's it's pretty. I think
it's a nostalgia that makes me like it. You know,
are we changing the what we're gonna start doing on
this show every week just for candy bars? Because I'm
enjoying this. This is a good This is a good question. Also,
I have it on on fairly solid authority that other
(33:25):
countries are absolutely smashing the US out of the water
in the candy bar game. Yes, waited, but but yes,
going back, Um, it's true. We've seen this time and
time and time again. Long time listeners, you know that
despite what our species propagates about itself in in film
(33:50):
and in literature, we're actually terrible and holding onto anything
or remembering anything. We lose entire civilizations. We have no idea,
We have no idea where why 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,
(34:13):
because our predecessors did not want to have the question answered. Well.
You know, we're talking about explorers on the African continent
who when they explorers from Europe rather, who would find
these um or nate ruins and then say something like Oh,
(34:34):
clearly some other European's been here before. Yeah, or there
was some unknown race of humanity that came down from
the stars or from inside the earth and created this
definitely lizard people, yeah, I mean nine out of ten
times you're looking at lizards. Yep. So let's uh, let's
(34:55):
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 Cochia was got
protected status, right, Yeah, that's correct. And before the nineteen
(35:17):
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 air fields. People built houses and highways on them.
And currently you can go see this place. It's about
eight miles out of St. Louis. You can go visit
(35:39):
this ancient lost city and explore conjecture for yourself about
what led twenty people to vanish from it. You know,
in a very short time span, you can go to
Cahokia Mounds dot org, which is c A h okay
I A m o U n d s dot org
(35:59):
if you want to learn more specifically about how to
get there and everything. And this if 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 might be surprised. Currently, about two
(36:22):
d and fifty thousand people visit this site every year.
In comparison, about four million people visit the Gateway Arch
in St. 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 where
(36:44):
we don't have time to explore on today's show. How
many other things like this are out here. So Georgia,
the state in which our podcast is based, has a
rich pre Columbian history all its own. A lot of
people aren't aware of it. As a matter fact, the
building in which we record this show sits atop an
(37:04):
ancient sacred spring. You guys heard about this, Right, that's
how you're gonna say Indian burial ground, and 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
(37:25):
that was driven underground. History is a palamp sessed um,
which I think we've said before on this show. So
a palam cessed is and the palm sess is a
weird thing, but a great comparison. Back when paper was
much much more expensive and time consuming and rare, people
(37:46):
wouldn't just throw away a sheet of paper if they
needed to write something down. They would erase the previous
information and right over it. But because of the way
they wrote, we can still see what was there before,
because as there are indentations in the paper. And that's
a lot like studying history. We're not looking at this
(38:07):
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 get to the bottom, 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 d years. Thankfully. It's a
(38:29):
sort of like a mini Noah's Our kind of situation,
like you keep you described as the ship and container,
but it really is. It probably would just rise with
the waters. We just continue podcasting atop the high seas. Sari,
you're gonna be okay to just keep it rolling while
all that's happening. Yeah, she's she's yeah, she says, uh oh,
she said, of course I got this big Yes. Sorry,
is so cool, you guys, But she did not sign
(38:50):
up for a catastrophic flood, right, she can handle. I
guess most people don't. Yeah, exactly. Are very few people
who are like, oh, man, can't wait, I'm so I'm
so hype, unless you live in Miami. Oh gosh, that's right.
That's right. Family there. We hope that you enjoyed this
brief exploration of the mystery of Coo Kia. As Matt said,
(39:14):
you can visit their website for more information, and we
would like to hear from you what are the what
are the forgotten monuments or ruins in your neck of
the woods. We talked a little bit about what was
built upon ancient uh sites here in Georgia. With just
one example, I imagine there are hundreds, if not thousands,
(39:37):
of even better, more explicit examples, and we want to
know yours. Yeah, and have you ever been to Mississippian
culture mound structure anywhere, or a series of mounds anywhere?
Have you've been to some of the mounds in Georgia
or just wherever you live? We want to know. We
wanna know your experience and if you've heard anything else
that we should learn about it, or a whole maybe
(39:58):
a whole another podcast we should make about that specific
culture or location. Please 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 you all are super
cool people not being nice on Twitter, Matt, I've just
(40:21):
noticed on Twitter lately there's been a lot of not
niceness really just Twitter at large. There are 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. People get cranky on there sometimes too, but
it's okay. We again those mods hold us down. Let's
(40:43):
see what else we got. Um. You can check out
me and Ben's instagram e's if you want to. I'm
at Embryonic Insider, I'm at Ben Bowling. Matt. I believe
you are at Kim Kardashian or is it j I
don't know what it is this week. You are at
the Famous Egg. That's it. That's it. I'm a fund
of me like my posts, part them. Whatever you do
(41:06):
on Instagram. Just kidding. Don't find me there. Hey, but
what if? What if I am a fan of the show.
I have something my fellow listeners would love to hear,
and I would to reach the show, but I hate
social needs. Check it out. Pick up your old phone. Yeah,
if you've got a dial tone, then you're good to go.
You'll even work on our rotary. It'll work. Just just
(41:26):
type in one eight three three st d w y
t k K only one K yes, but just stuff
they don't want you to know, and leave us a voicemail.
It's you get three minutes to tell your story if
you don't get it in in three minutes, then you
got a call back and do it again. We recommend
practicing it in front of the mirror a few times
(41:47):
before committing um, because we will shame you the second one.
It's fine, but just you know, much like the Network USA,
we characters are well welcome on our things, So just
go ahead and just get weird with it if you
want to or be super sincere, we accept all and
if it's something that you do not want shared with
(42:09):
your fellow listeners, all that we ask is that you
say so in the recordings so that we don't air
your business. If it's just a private message, we totally understand.
And to Knowle's point, I absolutely agree from personal experience
trying to leave a voicemail for this show. I think
I did it like five times because I wasn't ready,
(42:30):
and we mocked you aggressively. Then I think justly so
we would never do that to our buddy Ben. But
there is one other way. If you hate phones, we
get If you hate the social media stuff, totally get it.
You can still contact us. Just say our names three
times in a mirror in a dark room, or send
(42:50):
us an email. We are conspiracy and how Stuff Works
dot com. M Stuff They Don't Want You to Know
(43:14):
is a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio 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
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!