Society & Culture
When Americans travel internationally, they often encounter nations and civilizations far older than their 245-year-old home country. As they explore new cultures, the travelers learn the depth and breadth of antiquity, often well-preserved, in many of these foreign lands. How wonderful it is, they marvel, that we can take a trip back in time and see government buildings, houses of worship, homes, roads, markets: elements of entire societies that were established and active hundreds of years before the US was even a thought in anyone’s mind. While it’s true that the story of the United States goes back only a few hundred years, Indigenous cultures in North America had been thriving for centuries before Europeans set foot on the continent. Though sadly much of the history of Native American tribes have been lost or destroyed, a shining example of a Native American city lives on in southwestern Illinois, only a few miles from modern-day St. Louis.