January 23, 2013 Lost City of Cahokia

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by Trilby

fuck the bridge- this is much more important and interesting and will bring dollars to the area. I think it's really cool they found something like this here in 'merica where nothing is older or wiser than your average 20 year old.

I've spent my life along the coast of California. All of this land was once inhabited by Native Americans, my ancestors.

In one small town, where the land was cheap, they had the bright idea to build an open-air mall with stores below and condos above. When doing a project like this in this area, a Native American (or an expert?) must be on hand in case anything appears in the digging.

In this case, the mall was to be built on land that had been inhabited by the Ohlone. There was a big to-do about the whole thing. Some said it was sacred land and others claimed it was the village dump due to the number of fractured shell pieces.

The mall was built, the area was named Shellmound because that is what it had been and a monument was in place to honor and inform visitors about the Ohlone that had once lived there.

The mall did not do well. It has struggled to survive all these years. Every so often there is a protest against the mall being on Native land.

When do we move on? We can't preserve every bit of land that had been inhabited by other people or we'd never have any place to live.

Look at the digs they are doing in (Israel? I can't remember now.) where they are digging undeveloped land in the middle of a city. The old city continues on under the developed areas.

It is a tricky balance.

They need the bridge and they need to uncover and discover the city that was found. Hopefully, they can find a way to do both before they completely destroy each other and the project.

[glatt]

In the US, there is very little left that has any historical significance. We're just too young. I think we should do everything within reason to preserve truly significant stuff like the site of an ancient city half a millennium old.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by CaliforniaMama

When do we move on? We can't preserve every bit of land that had been inhabited by other people or we'd never have any place to live.

You don't live on a little island.
Foot once told me that we'd run out of oil to make plastic bottles far sooner than we'd run out of space to bury them. That spoke to me about the huge expanse of America.

You can save some space to preserve history if you can spare some to bury stuff that could be recycled.

Of course I suggest you learn from us. Preserve some, but also knock down beautiful places and build execrations next to them. I suppose it provides architects a cheeky smile to see the juxtaposition. Unless they are all inducted into a secret "who can bulid the ugliest building" contest. And trust me, I live in a town blighted by the '60s. And pretty much every decade from since then. Oh wait. I mean DON'T learn from us.

Our history is ten-a-penny, so we're casual about it. But in odd woods and fields or preserved in publicly accessible basements of office blocks (our cities cities have layer upon of layer of history) and in strange corners of the country, we still have the past. It anchors you.