Cahokia: A Book Critique The book Cahokia by Timothy R. Pauketat answers a question that most didn’t even know was questionable: What did early North American cities look like? The answer lies in the mounds and relics of the magnificent city of Cahokia. Pauketat explains through extensive detail, the experiences of others, and by presenting questions to the reader just how this city came to be and how it faded out.
Pauketat portrays information in a clear and precise way by using exact examples from real life anthropology sites. One particular example is when he describes the game Chunkey: “...one of the players would throw a disk-shaped stone about the size of a modern hockey puck...a few paces into the yard would, about at the same time, chuck their playing sticks like huge darts to the rolling stone. Points were scored depending on close the sticks...landed” (41). The attention to detail when describing the game allows the reader to visualize the game, hear the loud players, and feel the overall emotion of the favorite …show more content…
It is also based around the different personalities of anthropologists and archeologists. Pauketat recognizes this throughout the book. He especially expresses this when he explains a situation regarding a dig at Cahokia: “With many archeologists working in one area under such desperate conditions, tensions soon manifested themselves. Some of the crew leaders, such as [James] Porter’s good friend Charles Bareis...felt as if he’d been tricked” (58). Personalities can be big in any job, but when workers are cramped into a small space for multiple hours a day under the hot sun, there can sometimes not be enough room for everyone. In any archeology project, people's actions and thoughts can be a burden. The author makes this clear throughout all of his examples of archeological digs and really describes the secular problems that can come with a job like this
Pauketat portrays information in a clear and precise way by using exact examples from real life anthropology sites. One particular example is when he describes the game Chunkey: “...one of the players would throw a disk-shaped stone about the size of a modern hockey puck...a few paces into the yard would, about at the same time, chuck their playing sticks like huge darts to the rolling stone. Points were scored depending on close the sticks...landed” (41). The attention to detail when describing the game allows the reader to visualize the game, hear the loud players, and feel the overall emotion of the favorite …show more content…
It is also based around the different personalities of anthropologists and archeologists. Pauketat recognizes this throughout the book. He especially expresses this when he explains a situation regarding a dig at Cahokia: “With many archeologists working in one area under such desperate conditions, tensions soon manifested themselves. Some of the crew leaders, such as [James] Porter’s good friend Charles Bareis...felt as if he’d been tricked” (58). Personalities can be big in any job, but when workers are cramped into a small space for multiple hours a day under the hot sun, there can sometimes not be enough room for everyone. In any archeology project, people's actions and thoughts can be a burden. The author makes this clear throughout all of his examples of archeological digs and really describes the secular problems that can come with a job like this