Shells & Bones Found at Cahokia May Reflect Cosmology

COLLINSVILLE, ILLINOIS—Students from the University of Bologna unearthed a collection of artifacts that could represent the cosmological view of the Mississippians living at Cahokia Mounds. Whelk shells, imported from the Gulf Coast, a dog bone, and bird bones were found in a ceremonial pit, along with two toggles that may have tied the items together in a bundle. The shells are thought to represent the lower world of the cosmos, the dog bone the middle world where humans lived, and the bird bones the upper world. “Most of what we find are fragments of pottery shards and little bits of arrow points and things like that. So 95 percent of what we find are that kind of stuff. But when we find something that represents what we think, it was actually a bundle, a sack, with things laid in there in a very specific order related to their cosmological view, that’s a pretty significant find,” Cahokia Mounds Museum Society Executive Director Lori Belknap told The News Democrat.