It's nice to see such good news..I sure hope they are sucessful..
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www.stltoday.com/stltoday/...17005F54A8

Cahokia Mounds to expand
By Jim Suhr
Associated Press
02/16/2006

Monks Mound at Cahokia Mounds Historical Site
(Odell Mitchell Jr./P-D)

COLLINSVILLE, Ill. (AP) -- For years, Cahokia Mounds' administrators longed to snatch up more property near the ruins of the prehistoric city but lacked the money to do it, fearing all the while that artifacts on the coveted private land could be forever lost to development.

Their concerns eased a bit Thursday, when the state finally released funds -- $837,800 -- earmarked years ago for expanding the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, now spanning 2,200 acres of the 4,000 that comprised the once-thriving city of up to 20,000 American Indians.

"We're so proud of Cahokia," Bob Coomer, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency's director, said during a news conference at the historic site just west of this St. Louis suburb. Land-acquistion "funds have been extremely difficult to come by; we feel very fortunate to get these funds at this time."

Officials declined to specify how many of the 1,800 acres the state looks to buy or where those parcels are, insisting that revealing such details could prompt landowners to inflate their selling prices. Coomer said officials have targeted for possible purchase three or four "primary points that have a significant relationship to the site," with negotiations to begin "as soon as possible."

Mark Esarey, the site's manager, said the state funds -- earmarked in 2000 but held until now as the state wrestled with budgetary issues -- represent the largest amount of money for Cahokia Mounds land acquisition in about 15 years. "It's a big deal," he said.

Believed to have been inhabited from 700 to 1400 A.D., Cahokia was among the most complex, sophisticated societies of prehistoric North America. Its enduring collection of mounds served as ceremonial sites, residences and tombs for Cahokia's leaders and servants. Evidence retrieved from burial mounds and other sites suggest a hierarchical political structure, a specialized economy and significant scientific knowledge.

The prehistoric city originally had 120 mounds, and the locations of 109 have been recorded. The state historic site includes about 70 of the mounds, ranging in height from about five to 100 feet. Many others have been altered or destroyed by modern farming and urban sprawl; in 2000, one such mound was plowed under to make way for a new subdivision near Edwardsville.

At its peak around 1100 to 1200, researchers say, the city covered nearly six square miles and had as many as 20,000 inhabitants. The site was abandoned by 1400 and remained uninhabited until Illini Indians moved into the area around 1650.

Its tallest existing landmark, the 100-foot-tall Monks Mound, is made up of 22 million cubic feet of dirt. It is the largest pre-Columbian structure north of Mexico and the largest all-earthen pyramid in the New World. The site also includes an unearthed wooden sun calendar similar to Stonehenge.

Cahokia was designated a World Heritage Site by a United Nations agency in 1982, joining the likes of the Great Wall of China, Egypt's pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty.

Over the years, the mounds' caretakers have implored police to stop interlopers who have torn down fences and run over the remote mounds.