Pre-European

One of the oldest human settlements was just south of Thebes.  more.  This settlement (now fully examined by archeologists) is now alongside the Mississippi River. To find it, drive south under the Thebes rail bridge. It’s the clearing where the river is visible.  A five-mile span of the river from south of Cape Girardeau to south of Thebes has a high rocky bottom that would have made it easy to wade across the river. Mark Twain would later regret its existence.

A young riverboat pilot named Sam Clemens, whom you know as writer Mark Twain, later complained bitterly about this same stretch of shallow river which tore the bottom out of his towboat. He called it “a chain of rocks admirably arranged to capture and kill steamboats on bad nights .” This writing is actually his firsthand experience as a young riverboat pilot. He barely made it to Cairo after a scrape with the rocks. The rocky area is known as the Thebes gap. The gap wasn’t really formed until about 10,000 years ago. Before then the Mississippi river turned west and spilled across the Missouri Bootheel.

Fast forward… Agricultural tools in the Midwest of 800-1400 AD were frequently made of Mill Creek chert, favored because it did not easily break when used as a hoe or plow. It was mined at Mill Creek, still a tiny town east of Cape Girardeau and south of Jonesboro. Mill Creek chert tools were found as far away as current day Detroit. The chert miners/makers lived at the same time and were likely part of the moundbuilders’ era.

Illinois timeline |  Il. State Museum sitesearch

Many communities of moundbuilders existed in the southeast quarter of the country between about 800 and 1400 AD. Their rituals and behaviors were remarkably similar. Their villages were enclosed by vertical fences. They erected mounds for their religious and civic leaders and burials. The largest community, Cahokia, (near the current Cahokia, Il., just outside St. Louis) was larger in 1300 AD than London, England.

Another was Kincaid mounds near Metropolis, just across the Ohio River from Paducah, Ky.  more. Another was Millstone Bluff, northeast of Vienna. A large one was Angel Mounds near Evansville, Indiana. Moundbuilders’ traditions and lifestyle were all very similar, even though they lacked all modern forms of communication. They all suddenly died out about the same time.  Then the Europeans came…