Digging for the past

Describes what is known of the ancient city of Cahokia, a site in present-day Illinois which was inhabited by Native Americans from about 700 A.D. to 1400 A.D., the Missippippian culture of which it was a part, and the archaeological investigations undertaken there.

Relates the nineteenth-century discovery of cliff dwellings in the Chaco Canyon of northwest New Mexico, the excavations of the ancient ruins, and what the artifacts reveal about the civilization of the ancient Pueblo Indians.