By Jen Rose Smith 13 April 2021
Pity the event planners tasked with managing Cahokia s wildest parties. A thousand years ago, the Mississippian settlement – on a site near the modern US city of St Louis, Missouri – was renowned for bashes that went on for days. A cosmopolitan whir of language, art and spiritual ferment
Throngs jostled for space on massive plazas. Buzzy, caffeinated drinks passed from hand to hand. Crowds shouted bets as athletes hurled spears and stones. And Cahokians feasted with abandon: burrowing into their ancient waste pits, archaeologists have counted 2,000 deer carcasses from a single, blowout event. The logistics must have been staggering.
BBC - Travel - The enduring allure of lost cities
bbc.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bbc.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Annalee Newitz s latest book uses the lens of archeology to examine why cities disappear
berkeleyside.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from berkeleyside.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Imbolo Mbue on Writing Her Second Novel
Mbue talks about “How Beautiful We Were,” and Annalee Newitz discusses “Four Lost Cities.” Hosted by Pamela Paul
transcript
-0:00
Imbolo Mbue first began writing her new novel, “How Beautiful We Were,” in 2002. The book concerns the impact of an American oil company’s presence on a fictional African village. She eventually put the idea aside to work on what turned into her acclaimed debut novel, “Behold the Dreamers.” When she began working again on the earlier idea, it was 2016. On this week’s podcast, she says that returning to the novel at that moment changed the way she approached writing it.