North American societies before 1500: Ancestral Puebloans, Hohokam, Cahokia and the Haudenosaunee

Grade 7 Social Studies Worksheet - Building Confidence

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Cahokia (cards A to D; summaries in our words). Card A, an archaeologists' site summary: the city stood beside the Mississippi River about 1050 to 1350 CE and was at its largest around 1100. Monks Mound is about 100 feet (30 m) high, covers 13.8 acres and was built in as many as 10 stages. About 120 earthworks stood at the peak, and about 80 survive. Card B, population estimates: one park summary says 15,000 to 20,000 people lived there around 1100; a later estimate says 6,000 to 40,000. A 2007 study of the central 1.8 square kilometers found a rise from 1,400 to 2,800 people before 1050 to 10,200 to 15,300 between 1050 and 1100. Card C, objects found: about 20,000 shell beads in one burial (Mound 72); sea shells from the Gulf coast; copper plates; and Mill Creek chert, a stone from southwestern Illinois used to make hoes. Card D, why the city was left: it was empty by about 1350 (one source says about 1400). Floods, drought, conflict, disease and social breakdown have each been proposed, and the cause is not settled.

2. 1.

   The people of Cahokia left no writing that we can read. How do the cards know about the city, Ari asks?

   • From mounds, burials and objects that archaeologists dug up
   • From a French explorer's account of visiting the city around 1300
   • From diaries kept by the people of Cahokia and found in the mounds
   • From a school textbook that retells what earlier historians once said about the city
3. 2.

   Card B gives very different population estimates. Why might they differ, Esme asks?

   • People kept moving in and out, so a count of any kind is out of the question
   • The estimates must describe different cities in different places along the river
   • One study must have counted the mounds as if they were people
   • They must guess how many houses stood at once and how many people lived in each
4. 3.

   A student says, "Card A shows Cahokia was the biggest city in the world around 1100." Which reply is best, Jun asks?

   • Not supported: card A does not compare Cahokia with other cities
   • Supported: a mound 100 feet high means no other city could have been larger
   • Supported: card B says 40,000 people lived there around 1100
   • Not supported: archaeologists cannot work out the size of a city from objects
5. 4.

   Card C lists Gulf coast shells and stone from southwestern Illinois. What does that best suggest, Kira asks?

   • Cahokians themselves traveled to the Gulf coast to collect those shells
   • Cahokia was too far from the coast for contact with other places
   • Cahokia made the shells, since they were found there in a burial
   • People at Cahokia got goods from other places by trade or exchange
6. 5.

   Card A says about 120 earthworks stood at the peak and about 80 survive. What share survives, and how many are gone, Luz asks?

   • About 80 percent survive; about 40 are gone
   • About one third survive; about 80 are gone
   • About two thirds survive; about 40 are gone
   • About two thirds survive; about 200 are gone
7. 6.

   Card A: Cahokia stood from about 1050 to 1350 and peaked around 1100. How long did it last, and how long after the peak did it end, Noah asks?

   • 300 years in all; 250 years after the peak
   • 300 years in all; 50 years after the peak
   • 350 years in all; 250 years after the peak
   • 250 years in all; 300 years after the peak
8. 7.

   How might an archaeologist and a person living at Cahokia in 1100 each know Monks Mound, Pia asks?

   • A resident knew its use from daily life; an archaeologist infers it
   • The archaeologist would know what it was for, since digging gives the reason
   • Both would know its purpose equally well, since both can see the mound
   • Neither could tell anything about it, since it is just a hill of earth
9. 8.

   Which new find would best support card D's idea that floods helped end the city, Ren asks?

   • A copper plate decorated with a bird design
   • Another shell bead from the Gulf coast placed in a burial
   • Layers of flood mud in lake sediment from near 1300
   • A second mound that is as tall as Monks Mound
10. 9.

    Card C says Mill Creek chert from southwestern Illinois was used to make hoes. What does that show, Tala asks?

    • Farming tools were made from stone from another part of the region
    • Hoes were made from Gulf coast shells that traders carried upriver
    • Chert is a kind of copper that was beaten into thin plates
    • Cahokians dug chert out of Monks Mound to shape into hoes
11. 10.

    Which would be the best source for how many houses stood in Cahokia's central area, Zee asks?

    • A guidebook that repeats a population estimate from a park summary
    • Excavations of house sites by archaeologists in the central area
    • A map of how the Mississippi River runs today
    • A story from European visitors who saw the city in the 1300s